Kootenai County, Idaho

• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 5.7 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest sector: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 13,424 workers (23.7% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $70,785.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $11.5B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $92,299 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $26,486, a 3.5x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 4.40x 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 6.3x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 71.3% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 11.3% 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: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$2,047/mo).

• Succession risk is real: 22.8% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Talent pipeline: 6 regional institutions feed the workforce; the top three combined produce 17,074 annual credentials.

Kootenai County shows meaningful potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 4.40x concentration and 93 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 22.8% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across forestry and logging, wood product manufacturing, and amusement, gambling, and recreation industries creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.