Nez Perce County, Idaho

• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 8.6 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest sector: Manufacturing employs 4,009 workers (25% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $73,176.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $3.1B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $89,617 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $22,634, a 4.0x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 7.97x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 8 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 4.6x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 70.4% 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 (~$1,815/mo).

• Succession risk is real: 23.2% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Short commutes: 16.7-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 17,074 annual credentials.

Nez Perce County shows strong potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 7.97x concentration and 51 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 23.2% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across forestry and logging, fabricated metal product manufacturing, and motor vehicle and parts dealers creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.