DeKalb County, Georgia

• Income near the national median: Median household income tracks the national median, indicating a broad-based consumer market.
• Talent advantage: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment exceeds the national average by 11.7 pts, supports knowledge-economy and tech attraction.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 51,230 workers (22.8% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $72,144. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 46,059 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $59.3B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Educational Services averages $126,009 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $29,632, a 4.3x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Educational Services concentrates at 3.57x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 7 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 33.2% of the employment across them, the largest being education economy. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.
• Attraction whitespace: 6 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.
• Elevated vacancy: 13.2% of housing units are vacant, above the Georgia rate of 10.3%, and up from 9.4% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 44.6% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 2.9%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 40.6% of the vacant stock, or 5.4% of all housing units against the 13.2% 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 $54,357 can pay without cost burden (~$1,359/mo), and 55.6% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 29.9% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Healthy participation: 68.3% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: the 6 largest of 12 institutions in DeKalb County award 8,824 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

DeKalb County shows meaningful potential for educational services attraction, with a 3.57x concentration and 23,169 jobs in this sub-sector.

The concentrated base spans educational services, telecommunications, and insurance carriers and related activities, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 33.2% of the employment across them, the largest being education economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.