As is the case with many of the successful cities in the Pacific Northwest, Spokane Washington has a variety of different industries offering employment to thousands of people in the area. A combination of a great location, abundant natural resources, and a willing labor market have served to make the industrial sector in Spokane a formidable one. Here are some of the industrial sectors which are most important to the city, and the jobs one might find within them.
Natural resources development
There is no industry more important to the city of Spokane than that which revolves around natural resources. The entire state of Washington is rich in a variety of different resources, and like other cities in the area Spokane owes its roots to those resources. The extraction and refinement of natural resources is still very much a part of the big economic picture of the city today. It is home to the largest silver mining district in the United States, and one of the largest in the western hemisphere.
That mining success, of course, means that there are all sorts of industrial opportunities as the silver travels from ground to market. A person might find a job right at one of the mining sites. There are positions for laborers, for heavy duty mechanics, for those trained in the use of tools such as a pressure calibrator, and so on.
On the other hand, you might want to look for a job on the processing end of things. The many silver processing plants offer hundreds of jobs to local residents. Plants employ managers and laborers, experts in the installation of thermal insulation materials and other safety devices, drivers, engineers, and the list goes on and on.
Make no mistake; silver is the most important natural resource on the Spokane industry scene by value, but it is not the sole staple of this sector of industry. Spokane is also well known for the products it develops from above ground, and from the sea as well. There are dozens of pulp and paper mills, sawmills, timber companies, and other sectors which operate in the forests of the region. Again, the processing side of these operations tend to offer high paying, low skill work to residents. You can work a strapping machine at a local plywood mill, or drive a forklift at a dock.
Technology
As fortunes within the natural resources sector have begun to decline over the last two decades, the city of Spokane has sought to develop jobs which go beyond the pneumatic conveyor belt and into the space age.
Efforts to drive the district in this direction are evident in the operations of the city itself. Currently, Spokane is home to the largest wireless network in the entire United States, with a 100 block downtown network. It's an ideal set up for many high tech businesses, which have placed offices and development operations in the Spokane area.
Among those companies are General Dynamics, BluRay Technologies, and Cisco. Along with several others, they are helping Spokane expand even further beyond round slings and hard hats and become a well rounded, highly adaptable employment market.
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