Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska

• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 5.9 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest sector: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 3,313 workers (22.3% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $71,203.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $3.6B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction averages $143,272 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $32,249, a 4.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Scenic and Sightseeing Transportation concentrates at 59.58x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 10 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, suggesting an interconnected industrial base rather than reliance on a single employer or sector.
• Attraction whitespace: 8 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 4.0x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 77% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 25.8% vacancy rate. In resort, rural, and seasonal markets much of this is recreational/seasonal (second homes), not available supply; confirm the vacancy-by-reason split before treating it as a redevelopment opportunity.
• Affordable rent tiers: 4 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$2,013/mo).

• Succession risk is real: 24% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 57.8% labor force participation suggests untapped capacity; workforce development programs may unlock supply.
• Short commutes: 20.7-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 6 regional institutions feed the workforce; the top three combined produce 4,409 annual credentials.

Kenai Peninsula Borough shows strong potential for scenic and sightseeing transportation attraction, with a 59.58x concentration and 251 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across scenic and sightseeing transportation, fishing, hunting and trapping, and support activities for mining creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.