Google is quietly pulling off a very un-quiet feat in the Seattle region: its workforce is growing even as its office map gets smaller. Kirkland is emerging as the big winner, with more employees and enough unfinished campus space to keep the Eastside plot thickening.
Google now employs roughly 8,000 people across the Seattle area, with more than half based in Kirkland, according to Puget Sound Business Journal. The shift gives Kirkland an increasingly central role in a regional tech economy that has spent the past few years absorbing layoffs, office vacancies and corporate reshuffling.
City data show Google’s Kirkland workforce jumped from 3,449 employees in 2024 to 5,076 in 2025, a 47% increase, W Report found. Google now accounts for about 11.5% of Kirkland’s workforce, trailing only EvergreenHealth among the city’s largest employers.
Kirkland Is Gaining Workers While Google Consolidates Elsewhere
The growth comes as Google has been tightening its footprint in other parts of the region. The company announced plans in 2025 to eventually leave its Fremont campus and consolidate Seattle employees in South Lake Union, while King County records show Google also placed at least 105,000 square feet of Bellevue office space on the sublease market.
GeekWire reported that the Fremont move was not expected to affect Google’s major engineering hub in Kirkland. Some workers from closed or reduced locations appear to have shifted east, although the precise split between Kirkland and South Lake Union has not been publicly detailed.
Google Has Room To Grow Without Immediately Building More
Google’s two main Kirkland campuses give the company a sizable local base: Kirkland Urban has about 650,000 square feet, while the Sixth Street campus has roughly 496,000 square feet, according to the Business Journal’s reporting. Google’s official Washington overview says the region is one of its largest engineering sites outside the Bay Area, supporting work on Android, Chrome, Cloud, Maps and Ads.
But the company’s expansion story has a distinctly unfinished edge. A 2025 King County assessment report said Google had not built out significant shell-condition space at Kirkland Urban, after earlier plans for additional expansion were scrapped.
That leaves Google with an unusual setup in Kirkland: a workforce that has grown sharply, campuses that can absorb more employees and additional space that remains on ice. For the Eastside, it is a sign that the region’s tech map may be changing even when the cranes are not moving.
