More than 100 business leaders, elected officials and residents filled Patty Boyd Concert Hall at Allan Hancock College Friday for our inaugural North County Economic Forecast.
Economist Chris Thornburg of Beacon Economics walked us through the data, and 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino kept us on track as master of ceremonies.
We are deeply grateful to our sponsors, whose support made this first-of-its-kind event a reality.
The most critical takeaway, however, is what the numbers told us, because they should change how this county thinks about itself.
For years, North County has been treated as a submarket — the territory north of the “real” economy on the South Coast. The forecast retired that idea for good. The North County region now supports nearly 103,000 jobs, or 47.7% of all employment in Santa Barbara County.
That is a record, and it is no accident.
Over the last five years our employment base grew 16.5%, more than double the 7.1% the county managed overall.
When people ask where the county’s growth is actually happening, the answer is increasingly here. That growth rests on three engines.
The first is agriculture, anchoring roughly 27,000 jobs and more than 90% of the county’s farm employment, feeding a crop economy that cleared $2 billion last year.
The second is space: Vandenberg Space Force Base reported a $5.5 billion economic impact and supported 77 launches, missile tests, and aeronautical operations in 2025 — its busiest pace since the 1970s — and the engineering and advanced-manufacturing ecosystem forming around it is exactly the high-wage activity our workforce needs.
The third is healthcare, which has added jobs at 22% over five years and supports some of the best-paying positions in the region. North County is also a genuine commercial hub now. The region generated $40.2 million in sales tax receipts in 2025 — over $4 billion in taxable sales — and accounts for more than half of all countywide receipts.
Our commercial base held steady last year even as the county contracted overall.
None of this lets us off the hook, and I’d be burying the lead if I didn’t say it plainly: housing is the constraint on everything else. From 2015 through 2025, North County delivered 65.4% of all the multifamily housing built in the county, and we are still behind.
Nearly half of our employed residents leave the region for work — a net outflow of about 15,000 workers — which is what happens when jobs grow faster than the homes and local opportunities that should grow with them.
The opportunity sits inside that problem. A typical North County home is roughly 65% cheaper than its South Coast equivalent. That affordability is our competitive advantage — but only if we keep building, and pair new housing with the water infrastructure, employment centers, and workforce training that turn growth into opportunity.
The Chamber convened this forecast because naming reality is the first step to acting on it.
The numbers make it clear: North County is the true engine room of our regional economy, and it’s time we started thinking of ourselves that way.
Keeping this momentum alive requires a unified effort from our cities, our employers, educational institutions, and our partners. Our regional success is the county’s success, and we accomplish more together than apart. Let’s get to work.
This Santa Maria Valley Chamber Commentary was provided by Michael Boyer, the President & CEO for the Santa Maria Valley Chamber. Boyer has over three decades of background in business operations, technology, and community leadership, he works to expand regional economic development, tourism, and local business advocacy across Northern Santa Barbara County.