Modest employment growth is expected next year in the Inland Northwest, with greater strides expected on the Idaho side of the border and a heavy concentration of health care-related jobs throughout the region. 

Grant Forsyth, chief economist at Avista Corp., is projecting job growth of 1% in the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area in 2025. As has been the trend for a few years, that percentage is expected to be slightly higher in North Idaho than in Eastern Washington. 

Through the first nine months of 2024, total employment increased by 0.4% in the Spokane market and about 3% in the Coeur d'Alene area. Overall, Forsyth says, that growth has slowed compared with with previous postpandemic years, especially due to a lull in activity in the spring and summer. 

"There was a bit of a blip in there, but it looks we’re bouncing back," he says.

The expansion that did occur was heavily weighted in the health care sector. Forsyth points out that if positions in the medical community were removed from the data, total employment would have dropped by 1% in the Spokane area, and the growth in Kootenai County would have decreased to 2%. 

"The only reason we had employment growth at all is because of health care," he says. 

Putting the data into context another way, Washington Trust Bank Chief Economist Steve Scranton says that the Spokane Metropolitan Statistical Area had 3,700 more jobs in October than it had in the year-earlier month. Of those, all but about 100 were in health care. 

He notes that similar trends persist at the state and national levels. 

"I emphasize that, yes, we are clearly growing jobs, but it's not a broad diversified jobs growth," Scranton says. 

Forsyth says Inland Northwest in-migration also has slowed since its peak during the pandemic, which likely will impact some businesses' ability to grow in 2025. 

Also, a few of President-elect Trump's campaign promises could cause challenges for Inland Northwest employers if they come to fruition. 

One of the most pressing concerns involves tariffs and the impacts those could have on businesses that import the goods they sell from overseas and those that have operations in other countries. Also, if tariffs are implemented by the U.S. and other countries institute tariffs of their own, exporters could face a competitive disadvantage. In Washington state, that could have a profound impact on the agriculture sector, which relies heavily on selling overseas, Scranton says. 

The long-term goal of such measures, he points out, is to create more jobs in manufacturing in the U.S., but in the short term, small businesses and ag producers could feel pinched by higher prices or an inability to compete on price. 

Scranton cautions, however, that executives and company owners should wait to see how trade negotiations play out before making business decisions. 

"I always caution people that what's promised during an election, and even what's stated before taking office, isn't necessarily what's going to happen," he says. 

Forsyth concurs. 

"There’s a lot of banging fists on the table right now, but we don’t know how it will turn out," he says.