SEATTLE — Mikie's drive-in hamburger stand in Everett, Wash., has weathered five strikes against Boeing Co. since opening 39 years ago, including the latest by 16,500 machinists. The economic hit is less severe each time.

"The area has gotten a lot more diversified over the years," said owner Mike Kane, 48, in a telephone interview. "There's just a lot of other jobs around."

Since the last Boeing strike five years ago, the number of company workers in the Seattle area has shrunk by about 17,500. During the same period, big employers such as Microsoft Corp. and Starbucks Corp. added jobs. That has helped cushion the blow to local retailers when workers strike.

When the Boeing machinists struck in 1977 for 45 days, Microsoft was a two-year-old startup and Starbucks was seven years away from selling its first latte. Today, Seattle-based Starbucks has about 300 stores in the area, and about half of Redmond-based Microsoft's 59,947 employees work in the Puget Sound region.

"Boeing is a major employer here, but not nearly as big as it's been in the past," said Ron Sims, executive of King County, where Boeing builds its 737 airliners. "Like most metro areas, we're coming out of a recession where our technology industry is doing well and even some manufacturing."

Mikie's is serving a growing number of workers from a new Navy base, Hewlett-Packard Co. and other companies that have come to the Seattle area since his parents founded the eatery in 1966, Kane said. In that time, the number of Boeing machinists in the region has fallen by more than half.

About four miles south of Mikie's on Evergreen Way, Donna Peterson, a waitress at Izzy's Pizza, said the strike will be felt at the restaurant: Boeing employees account for about a quarter of its sales.

"We do a lot of Boeing business — parties and things like that, but not this week," Peterson said in a telephone interview. "Regulars have told the manager here 'This is our last day for a few days.' With the kids restarting school, not having the Boeing business doesn't help."

Franklin Carbone, 53, said he's willing to walk a picket line at Renton until "hell freezes over." He said he'll get by on his "conservative spending habits and a bit of savings."

Since a machinists strike in 1989, the number of union machinists Boeing employs in the Puget Sound area, including its factories in Everett and Renton, has fallen 63 percent, according to the union.

"Back in the late '60s, when things were at a low and Boeing was 'the' employer in Everett, the strikes had a much bigger effect on the town," Kane said. "At this point, it's hard to tell if it's hurting business."

The Seattle metropolitan area, King and Snohomish counties, recorded 4.9 percent unemployment in July, close to the national rate of 5 percent for that month and matching the U.S. rate in August, which was a four-year low, according to the Labor Department. The figures are seasonally adjusted.

Boeing moved its headquarters to Chicago in 2001, taking 150 corporate jobs with it, spokeswoman Anne Eisele said.

Boeing is asking its machinists to pay more for healthcare and is offering a 10 percent pension increase. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers — Boeing's biggest union with a total of 18,300 workers — is demanding a pension increase of about 33 percent. It struck the company on Sept. 2.