Charlevoix County, Michigan

• Income near the national median: Median household income tracks the national median, indicating a broad-based consumer market.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 3.8% below the national average, so the nominal median of $76,531 is worth $79,554 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Aging population: Median age of 50 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 2,660 workers (35.7% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $78,286. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,726 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.7B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Utilities averages $148,980 while Real Estate and Rental and Leasing averages $38,761, a 3.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Plastics and Rubber Products Manufacturing concentrates at 16.99x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 10 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 52.4% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: goods manufacturing. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.
• Attraction whitespace: 3 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 3.6x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 83.5% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 30.5% of housing units are vacant, above the Michigan rate of 11.8%, and down from 34.9% 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% of the vacant stock, or 0.9% of all housing units against the 30.5% 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 $41,292 can pay without cost burden (~$1,032/mo), and 43.6% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 30.6% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 57.8% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 0.8% between 2019 and 2024, from 12,908 to 12,810.
• Short commutes: 19.9-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Charlevoix County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Charlevoix County shows strong potential for plastics and rubber products manufacturing attraction, with a 16.99x concentration and 818 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 30.6% 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. Goods manufacturing accounts for 52.4% of it, with plastics and rubber products manufacturing the largest single sub-sector at 26.7%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.