Jackson County, Oregon

• 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 19,917 workers (28.5% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $68,808.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $13.5B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $85,407 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $27,192, a 3.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 11.71x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 9 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, suggesting an interconnected industrial base rather than reliance on a single employer or sector.
• Attraction whitespace: 7 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 5.8x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• Affordable rent tiers: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$1,850/mo).

• Succession risk is real: 22.9% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 59.7% labor force participation suggests untapped capacity; workforce development programs may unlock supply.
• Short commutes: 19.1-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 21,110 annual credentials.

Jackson County shows strong potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 11.71x concentration and 316 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 22.9% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

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