The Brookings Institution took a look at which metropolitan areas in the U.S. are most exposed to the potential recession. They consider “industries vulnerable to disruption by virus-related demand declines, shutdowns, and layoffs.” These industries are:

• Mining/oil and gas,
• Transportation,
• Employment services,
• Travel arrangements, and
• Leisure and hospitality.

Nationally, 24.2 million people work in these sectors. In Washington, 603,701 people work in them.

Brookings ranks the metro areas by their concentration of employment within these sectors. The metro areas with the highest concentration of jobs in these sectors include places like Midland, Texas (heavy on oil and gas) and Las Vegas.

On the other end of the spectrum, the metro areas positioned to be least directly affected by COVID-19 are a diverse group consisting of older, manufacturing-heavy industrial cities, agricultural towns, and some already-distressed places. Agriculture communities Madera, Calif. and Yakima, Wash. are the two least exposed metro areas nationwide, with less than 10% of their workforce in affected industries.

(Emphasis added.) Of the 382 metro areas nationally, the most exposed Washington metro area is Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, which ranks just 223^rd. The Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro is close behind at 226^th most exposed. The table below shows how the Washington metro areas rank, under Brookings’ analysis.

Of course, being better situated than other areas to weather the storm (at least under this analysis) is cold comfort given the disruptions we are already seeing in our economy. Further, as Brookings notes,

In the event that the pandemic tips the economy into a significant nationwide recession, very few places or industries will emerge unscathed. And if that happens, other large sectors—including construction, manufacturing, retail, education, and even the motion picture industry—will be affected regardless of geography.