Tualatin City Councilors received a presentation on the city’s economic landscape that was largely positive at their meeting on July 13. The city’s labor force trends were mostly steady, with stats like population, employment and wage growth all ticking up over the last year.
Tualatin Economic Development Manager Sidaro Sin and Matt Craigie from research consulting firm Eco Northwest reported findings to city councilors and, while congratulating them on the economy’s optimistic outlook, they also shared plans for a new economic approach that would capitalize on successful industries.
Data discussed at the meeting was sourced from local, national and state statistics and compared against Tualatin’s economic opportunities analysis, which was part of the city’s “Tualatin 2040” project, adopted in 2019.
“We’re digging into data from national sources… from state sources that poll from local companies to really understand the composition of your economy,” Craigie said.
Although the Tualatin 2040 project aimed to dictate Tualatin’s development until 2040, Sin and Craigie both told the council on July 13 that the city would begin reanalyzing economics due to recent changes in macroeconomic trends.
“It’s been seven years since we’ve looked at that document and a lot has changed since then,” Sin said. “This is our first step in a multi-year analysis where we’re looking at our local economy, what are the different strategies that we can use as we’re facing new challenges. Especially, how we can improve our attractiveness for businesses.”
Tualatin has seen a 6.4% increase in population since 2014, with the city swelling to around 28,300 people and averaging a 0.6% increase every year.
On a financial level, Tualatin saw a rise in unemployment, with the city charting a 4.4% unemployment rate, which is 0.1% higher than the national average. Tualatin also reported an employment growth rate of 1.9% since 2021 and beat out Washington County, PDX and Oregon State in average wage increase, seeing large bumps in key industries.
“Your economy is doing great,” Craigie said. “So many communities would be jealous of the economy and the companies that you have here within Tualatin.”
According to Craigie, Tualatin’s job market had a high concentration in industries like manufacturing, wholesale trade and construction, which remained healthy and grew year over year.
An eye-opening statistic presented to council at the meeting was the fact that only 6% of individuals who work in Tualatin also live in Tualatin.
“We’re not talking about policy recommendations here at all. I’m just stating some of the analysis here today, but you’ve got a real opportunity there with projects like the Downtown Revitalization Project that you’re about to embark on to try and capture more of those folks within the community,” Craigie told the council.
Sin and Craigie reported that over the course of the next ten years, Tualatin would see major growth in high-tech manufacturing, building systems and health care sciences and advised that the city develop in the direction of these industries.
According to the presentation, Tualatin currently maintains 4,930 high-tech manufacturing jobs, 4,232 building services jobs and 3,993 health sciences jobs. Each industry saw overwhelmingly positive employment growth rates over the last decade.
“You might want to be taking a look and saying, ‘Ok, we don’t have a lot of employees there today, but there’s a lot of potential for growth,’” Craigie said.
Sin and Craigie said that next steps would be updating the city’s economic opportunity analysis in 2027 and coming up with additional economic strategies in 2028.
After the presentation, Tualatin City Councilors were curious about the logistics of building new businesses in relation to Tualatin’s developable land.
“When we do want to attract more high-tech manufacturing, and they are interested in Tualatin, the challenge we’re gonna have is, do we have the land and the infrastructure for them to build on?” Tualatin Mayor Frank Bubenik asked.
Sin reasoned that the Tualatin 2040 project had identified reliable strategies for how new industries would set up shop and how remaining land within city limits would be utilized. He referenced current projects in urban renewal zones like the Southwest and Basalt Creek Development Area as good examples of plausible development.
Sin told councilors that he and the city’s urban renewal team would continue working on an updated economic analysis and return with findings in the fall.
