By Kim Mackrael and Andrew Tangel

Seattle provides a pronounced version of the nation's economic divide between companies and workers who can operate primarily online through the coronavirus pandemic and those who can't.

The Emerald City's high-tech image stems from companies such as Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. -- both based in the Seattle area and among its largest employers. Their businesses have remained strong during the national downturn, providing job security to headquarters employees who can generally work from home. Neither company has announced staff layoffs in the region since much of the country's economic activity shut down in March to prevent the virus's spread.

Roughly 11% of the region's workers in the information sector, which includes software publishing, along with traditional broadcasters and publishers, applied for unemployment benefits during the 11 weeks ended May 16, according to an analysis of initial unemployment claims data from the Washington Employment Security Department. Government workers have also been relatively spared: Just 3% of that workforce has filed for unemployment benefits.

This contrasts with the fortunes of the area's factory and service-sector employees who can't work remotely and are now facing furloughs, job losses or worries about contracting the infection on the job.

Nearly half of the Seattle region's roughly 207,000 hospitality and leisure workers have filed for unemployment benefits since early March, based on the department's data. Construction, manufacturing, health and education workers are also among the hardest hit, with a third or more of their local workforce applying for unemployment benefits, the department's data show.

Looking at jobless claims as a percentage of the workforce helps give a sense of how the pandemic has affected different industries. Not all applications for unemployment benefits are approved, and Washington state said last week it is investigating a recent surge in fraudulent claims.

"We're in both extremes here," said Jacob Vigdor, an economist with the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance at the University of Washington in Seattle. "We have a good number of high-paid employees that are still getting paychecks. But we're going to have some lagging sectors as well."

The Seattle area was home to the first publicly known U.S. cluster of deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, and Washington was among the first states to issue stay-at-home orders. More than 700 people in the region have reportedly died from the disease, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Washington has in recent weeks allowed landscaping, some construction and curbside pickup for retail stores.

Zak Elhabbassi, 25, who lost his sales job at a Mercedes dealership in Seattle on March 23, said he is putting expenses on his credit card while he waits for unemployment payments, and isn't sure how he will cover his share of the rent in June.

"Two months ago, everyone was doing just fine," Mr. Elhabbassi said. "And then this pandemic hits and everyone's like, 'Oh God, I've got to eat, I've got to pay rent.' It just shows how vulnerable we are."

One of Seattle's struggling sectors is aerospace manufacturing. Boeing Co., though based in Chicago, is the largest employer in Washington, with more than 70,000 workers in the state. It operates two aircraft assembly factories in the Seattle area and its presence supports hundreds of suppliers. The company had already halted production at its plant in Renton in January because of the prolonged grounding of its 737 MAX jet following two fatal crashes.

Boeing closed its largest Seattle-area factory temporarily in late March after about two dozen workers in the region tested positive for the new coronavirus and one person died. The plant reopened last month with additional safety precautions. But employees across the company are facing a new concern: Boeing, which employed 161,000 staff world-wide as of Jan. 1, said in late April it plans to cut its global workforce by about 10% amid a collapse in demand for air travel.

Much of the company's cuts are expected to hit Boeing's commercial arm, whose operations are based in the Seattle area. The company has said the reductions will target both factory and white-collar workers.

"Everybody's just anxious to see how deep the cuts will be and then how long it is going to take us to get a vaccine," said Joel Funfar, a Boeing technician who is president of the union local for the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace.

Seattle's hospitality industry and bricks-and-mortar retailers also are reeling from the shutdowns.

Owners of restaurants and stores in downtown Seattle said business dropped off sharply in early March after large technology companies asked most workers to stay home.

Hotels and restaurants will miss out on a seasonal bump in business due to the cancellation of this year's cruise season, which last year generated nearly $900 million in local business revenue, according to the Port of Seattle. At seafood restaurant Ivar's Acres of Clams, roughly 70% of summer revenue comes from tourists, said co-owner Bob Donegan. "That's a huge business we're not going to get this summer," he said.

Meanwhile, some technology and e-commerce businesses have reported higher demand since the pandemic began.

Amazon.com Inc. said sales rose beginning in early March, as more people shopped from home, and Microsoft Corp. reported strong growth in first quarter sales and profit. The two companies together employ more than 100,000 people in the region.

Facebook Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc., which each have several thousand workers in the Seattle area, reported higher revenue and more use of their services in the first quarter.

Ian Warner, a public policy director with online real-estate company Zillow, which is based in Seattle, said his shift to remote work was easier than he expected, even though it coincided with his family moving into a new house, and the pandemic meant his parents and his partner's parents could no longer help out with child care. Zillow was among the first Seattle companies to ask workers to stay home, and the company has since said they can continue to do so until at least 2021.

Mr. Warner, 34, said he is relieved not to have to worry about the possibility of getting his family sick. "It feels much safer working from home," he said.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said in an interview that tech companies' early decisions to ask employees to work from home made an important difference in slowing the spread of the virus. But she worries that the pandemic's uneven impact on industries in the region could add to existing inequalities.

"If you look at who was able to enjoy the surge of the innovation economy, I think that disproportionately communities of color were left out of that equation," she said. She said the pandemic has accelerated economic change in Seattle and accentuated the differences between the innovation economy and other sectors.

Some workers in harder-hit industries are hoping to transfer their skills to others.

Jessica Horton, 37, resigned from her job as human resources director at the Pan Pacific Seattle hotel in March after her pay was cut by half. She believes her work experience should help her land a new job, likely in the tech industry.

"There's not going to be anything to go back to from a hospitality perspective," Ms. Horton said. "I'll probably end up at Amazon."

Write to Kim Mackrael at kim.mackrael@wsj.com and Andrew Tangel at Andrew.Tangel@wsj.com