Merrimack County, New Hampshire

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Aging population: Median age of 43 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest sector: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 11,992 workers (23.2% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $73,594.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $13.8B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $131,565 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $30,115, a 4.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 5.12x 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 3.8x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 73.5% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Affordable rent tiers: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$2,425/mo).

• Succession risk is real: 24.1% 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 35,524 annual credentials.

Merrimack County shows strong potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 5.12x concentration and 115 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24.1% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across forestry and logging, primary metal manufacturing, and religious, grantmaking, civic, professional orgs creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.