Beaver County, Utah

• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 12.2 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Young population: Median age of 34 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest sector: Retail Trade employs 396 workers (27.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $28,750.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $587M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Utilities averages $112,278 while Wholesale Trade averages $23,041, a 4.9x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Utilities concentrates at 27.89x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 6 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, suggesting an interconnected industrial base rather than reliance on a single employer or sector.
• Attraction whitespace: 3 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 3.6x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 81% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 15.2% 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.
• Broadly affordable rents: All 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$1,984/mo), a clear cost-of-living advantage for workforce attraction.

• 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 68,482 annual credentials.

Beaver County shows strong potential for utilities attraction, with a 27.89x concentration and 331 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The interconnected base across utilities, gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and truck transportation creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.