‘The check engine light is on’: Gee warns Seattle’s job losses should worry everyone, not just big tech

Washington state lost nearly 7,000 jobs last year, the first net job loss outside of a recession or pandemic in about two decades. The state has fallen from 32nd to 47th in CNBC’s cost of doing business rankings since 2017, and Microsoft President Brad Smith warned Monday that the state is taxing the thing it needs most: jobs.

Gee Scott, co-host on “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio, said the warning signs have been building for years.

“The check engine light in Seattle is on,” Gee said. “When you start talking about 7,000 jobs gone, this is real.”

Gee pointed to Seattle chef Edouardo Jordan, who appeared on the show last year and made a comparison many found uncomfortable.

“He said, ‘At this current pace, Seattle will potentially end up like Detroit in the future,'” Gee said. “A lot of folks didn’t like that, but it’s interesting because in this article it talks about that.”

Gee said he watched Detroit’s decline firsthand growing up.

“I remember as a young child going to Detroit to see family all the time,” Gee said. “The middle, upper-middle class, oh man, the auto industry had a lot of folks making really good money. And then we all know what has happened since.”

He believed Seattle’s confidence has been built on the assumption that its biggest employers aren’t going anywhere.

“It feels like Seattle felt invincible. Why? Because of the big tech companies that are here,” Gee said. “You got Microsoft. You got Amazon. You got Boeing. Some of the smartest people in the world are here in Seattle. But have there not been layoffs? Have we not seen a lot of tech layoffs?”

Smith says Seattle is taxing jobs while Gee warns small businesses are getting hit hardest

Smith, speaking at the launch of the Partnership for a Competitive Puget Sound on Monday, singled out Seattle’s JumpStart payroll tax, saying it amounts to a tax on tech jobs and is pushing companies to Bellevue and the Eastside.

“Jobs are leaving, unemployment is rising, the economy is less competitive than it was a decade ago, and we need to turn that around quickly,” Smith said. “If we don’t, we’re going to see this economy worsen, and the problem gets bigger as the hole gets deeper.

“Our big problem is we’re now a top 10 state among the 50 states for most taxes,” Smith added. “We’re increasingly becoming a bottom 10 state for the kinds of factors that businesses look at: business friendliness, the cost of doing business.”

Gee said the real impact falls hardest on smaller operations, not the companies making headlines.

“When these Brad Smiths of the world and these big tech companies are talking about taxes, I don’t think that they are getting hit with taxes like the small businesses,” Gee said. “Small businesses, those with 10 employees or less, that’s a whole different game.”

Still, Gee said the bottom line is the same for every business, large or small.

“Don’t get emotional like me,” Gee said. “That’s not how big businesses work. They operate on the bottom line. They operate with the spreadsheet. And when I say cents, I said cents. C-E-N-T-S. It has to make cents to these businesses to stay here.”

Gee closed with an appeal for leaders to act before the comparison to Detroit and Pittsburgh stops being hypothetical.

“If there’s anybody that doesn’t think that’s possible, then ask somebody who lived in those times when Detroit was flourishing, when Pittsburgh was flourishing,” Gee said. “The check engine light is on here in Seattle.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.