Boise County, Idaho

• Income near the national median: Median household income tracks the national median, indicating a broad-based consumer market.
• Aging population: Median age of 53 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation employs 453 workers (41.8% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $25,906. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 546 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $283M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $63,554 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $17,862, a 3.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Gasoline Stations and Fuel Dealers concentrates at 4.10x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 3 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 57.8% 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.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 6.0x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 90.3% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 36.8% of housing units are vacant, above the Idaho rate of 10.3%, and down from 42.3% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 87.7% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 3.6% of the vacant stock, or 1.3% of all housing units against the 36.8% 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: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $61,607 can pay without cost burden (~$1,540/mo), and 21.8% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 34% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 53.2% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 21.9% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Boise County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Boise County shows meaningful potential for gasoline stations and fuel dealers attraction, with a 4.10x concentration and 40 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 34% 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 57.8% of it, with specialty trade contractors the largest single sub-sector at 42.2%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.