You'll Never Guess Ridgefield's Biggest Employer — It's Not Costco

The city just dropped its 2025 financial report, and buried in the spreadsheets is the one stat everyone gets wrong. Go ahead, guess. We'll wait.

Everybody in this town has a Costco opinion. It's the parking lot we all circle, the place where you run in for one thing and leave with a rotisserie chicken and a kayak. So naturally, when the City of Ridgefield released its 2025 Popular Annual Financial Report, I assumed Costco would top the list of local employers. It doesn't. It's not even close.

The Real Number One

United Natural Foods West, Inc. — the distribution operation most residents have never set foot in — employs 654 people in Ridgefield. That's 12.44% of all employment in the entire city, more than double Costco's share. Ridgefield School District comes in second with 456 employees. Costco Wholesale #1703 is third, with 319.

Rounding out the top ten: Pacific Crest Building Supply, Piping Rock Health Products, the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, PepsiCo Beverage Sales, and Rosauers Supermarkets — together adding up to more than 41% of every job in Ridgefield coming from just ten employers.

The Growth Behind the Growth

Here's the number that actually explains why this matters: the city only started formally tracking employment data in 2019, when there were 2,929 jobs based in Ridgefield. That figure now sits at 5,257 — a 79.48% increase in six years, and that's before counting residents who work remotely from home. For a city whose population grew 137% over the past decade (from 6,870 residents in 2016 to 16,290 in 2025), jobs are actually growing faster than people.

Where This Is Headed

None of this is an accident. The city has stated a formal goal: become North Clark County's major employment center by 2036. For years, Ridgefield's budget leaned heavily on one-time sales tax from new home construction — great while houses are going up, not so great once they stop. The city's own financial report describes a deliberate shift toward employers like these, plus retail anchors such as Rosauers, Costco, and Tractor Supply, to build a steadier, more permanent tax base. Translation: the jobs showing up in this list aren't just filling out a spreadsheet — they're the thing City Hall is actively counting on.

FAQ

A busy parking lot reflects customer traffic, not headcount. Costco runs efficiently with a relatively lean staff per location, while United Natural Foods West operates a large-scale distribution facility that simply requires more people to run.

As of 2025, 5,257 — and that figure doesn't include residents who work remotely from home, so the real number of working Ridgefield residents is higher.

The City of Ridgefield's 2025 Popular Annual Financial Report, released this month and based on the city's audited financial statements.