Lake 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 $1,407 (1.9%) under the Florida median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 7.9 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 46 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 21,785 workers (23.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $59,262. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 12,726 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $17.9B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $81,830 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $27,964, a 2.9x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Crop Production concentrates at 4.57x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 9 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 51.7% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: resident household spending. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.
• Attraction whitespace: 5 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 4.4x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 77.6% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Vacancy level: 12.3% of housing units are vacant, below the Florida rate of 14.7%, and down from 14.5% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 44.8% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 29.3% of the vacant stock, or 3.6% of all housing units against the 12.3% headline vacancy rate. That is the figure to plan an incoming employer's housing against, 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 $53,609 can pay without cost burden (~$1,340/mo), and 55.3% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 26% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 25% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 53.8% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 23% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: 3 institutions in Lake County award 1,514 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Lake County shows meaningful potential for crop production attraction, with a 4.57x concentration and 1,921 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 25% 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. Resident household spending accounts for 51.7% of it, with specialty trade contractors the largest single sub-sector at 29.1%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.