Clear Creek County, Colorado

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Below the state median: Median household income runs $893 (0.9%) under the Colorado median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living erodes income: Local prices run 5.8% above the national average, so the nominal median of $94,577 is worth $89,392 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Talent advantage: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment exceeds the national average by 21.8 pts, supports knowledge-economy and tech attraction.
• Aging population: Median age of 49 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Accommodation and Food Services employs 672 workers (33.8% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $35,903. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 591 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $656M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $152,339 while Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation averages $33,974, a 4.5x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Gasoline Stations and Fuel Dealers concentrates at 3.63x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 4 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 80.6% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: visitor economy. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 6.4x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 81.6% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 19.6% of housing units are vacant, above the Colorado rate of 8.3%, and down from 24.1% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 78.3% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 4.9% of the vacant stock, or 1% of all housing units against the 19.6% headline vacancy rate. Absorbable supply for an incoming employer is thin, and the gap between the two is the redevelopment and conversion opportunity.
• Affordable rent tiers: 1 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $67,050 can pay without cost burden (~$1,676/mo), and 54.1% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 28.1% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 67.8% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Clear Creek County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Clear Creek County shows meaningful potential for gasoline stations and fuel dealers attraction, with a 3.63x concentration and 81 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 28.1% 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. Visitor economy accounts for 80.6% of it, with food services and drinking places the largest single sub-sector at 64%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.