Montezuma County, Colorado

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Aging population: Median age of 44 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest sector: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 1,566 workers (26% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $48,228.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.5B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Transportation and Warehousing averages $93,227 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $25,565, a 3.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Wood Product Manufacturing concentrates at 3.54x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• 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.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 5.1x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 76.2% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Affordable rent tiers: 4 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$1,631/mo).

• Succession risk is real: 25.8% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 56.5% labor force participation suggests untapped capacity; workforce development programs may unlock supply.
• Short commutes: 20.4-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 25,233 annual credentials.

Montezuma County shows meaningful potential for wood product manufacturing attraction, with a 3.54x concentration and 85 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 25.8% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across wood product manufacturing, private households, and beverage and tobacco product manufacturing creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.