Williamson County, Illinois

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 9.5 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 42 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest sector: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 6,136 workers (27.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $62,443.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $4B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $64,427 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $25,076, a 2.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Accommodation concentrates at 2.05x the national norm.
• 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.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.4x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 70.7% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Broadly affordable rents: All 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$1,640/mo), a clear cost-of-living advantage for workforce attraction.

• 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.
• Talent pipeline: 6 regional institutions feed the workforce; the top three combined produce 37,237 annual credentials.

Williamson County shows emerging potential for accommodation attraction, with a 2.05x concentration and 748 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 23.2% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across accommodation, couriers and messengers, and motor vehicle and parts dealers creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.