Napa County, California

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Cost of living erodes income: Local prices run 12.6% above the national average, so the nominal median of $111,471 is worth $98,997 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Aging population: Median age of 43 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 13,980 workers (22.5% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $87,726. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 10,377 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $14.6B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $103,311 while Retail Trade averages $45,088, a 2.3x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Beverage and Tobacco Product Manufacturing concentrates at 66.91x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 5 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 55.8% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: goods manufacturing. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.
• Attraction whitespace: 4 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 7.8x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 10.8% of housing units are vacant, above the California rate of 7.5%, and down from 12.4% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 51.5% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 22.1% of the vacant stock, or 2.4% of all housing units against the 10.8% headline vacancy rate. Absorbable supply for an incoming employer is thin, and the gap between the two is the redevelopment and conversion opportunity.
• Rent affordability gap: None of the 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $81,786 can pay without cost burden (~$2,045/mo), and 52.2% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 25.3% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 22.6% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 63.3% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Napa County award 1,229 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Napa County shows strong potential for beverage and tobacco product manufacturing attraction, with a 66.91x concentration and 11,327 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 22.6% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Goods manufacturing accounts for 55.8% of it, all of it in beverage and tobacco product manufacturing. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.