Gilchrist County, Florida

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Below the state median: Median household income runs $11,045 (14.8%) under the Florida median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 3.3% below the national average, so the nominal median of $63,523 is worth $65,691 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 20.4 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• 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: Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting employs 409 workers (24.2% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $48,641. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,124 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $576M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Information averages $84,214 while Retail Trade averages $30,261, a 2.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Animal Production and Aquaculture concentrates at 45.93x 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, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 38.1% of the employment across them, the largest being resource and agricultural commodities. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 3.1x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 85.7% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Rent affordability gap: None of the 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $40,620 can pay without cost burden (~$1,016/mo), and 28.7% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 13.3% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 25.2% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 50.8% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 11.2% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Gilchrist County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Gilchrist County shows strong potential for animal production and aquaculture attraction, with a 45.93x concentration and 249 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 25.2% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans animal production and aquaculture, crop production, and private households, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 38.1% of the employment across them, the largest being resource and agricultural commodities. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.