Maui County, Hawaii

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Below the state median: Median household income runs $3,228 (3.2%) under the Hawaii median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living erodes income: Local prices run 9.4% above the national average, so the nominal median of $97,161 is worth $88,813 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: Accommodation and Food Services employs 19,265 workers (33.3% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $53,675. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 8,844 and is counted separately.
• Wage stratification: Construction averages $91,152 while Retail Trade averages $44,295, a 2.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Scenic and Sightseeing Transportation concentrates at 64.56x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 12 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 64.7% 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.
• Attraction whitespace: 4 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed and clear the local siting screen on energy cost, freight access and land base, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 9.3x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 22.7% of housing units are vacant, above the Hawaii rate of 13.3%, and down from 25.5% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 58.4% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 26.3% of the vacant stock, or 6% of all housing units against the 22.7% 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 $70,296 can pay without cost burden (~$1,757/mo), and 49.6% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 26.6% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 23.8% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 63.8% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Maui County awards 442 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Maui County shows strong potential for scenic and sightseeing transportation attraction, with a 64.56x concentration and 964 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 23.8% 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 64.7% of it, with accommodation the largest single sub-sector at 48.7%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.