Missoula County, Montana

• 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 3.6% below the national average, so the nominal median of $75,598 is worth $78,421 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• 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 11,406 workers (23.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $68,286. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 9,981 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $9.1B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $102,215 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $28,021, a 3.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Support Activities for Agriculture and Forestry concentrates at 2.69x the national norm.
• Cluster depth: 10 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 49.9% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.
• Attraction whitespace: 7 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 6.2x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• Affordable rent tiers: 1 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $49,309 can pay without cost burden (~$1,233/mo), and 45.9% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 69.6% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 18.1-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Missoula County awards 3,194 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Missoula County shows emerging potential for support activities for agriculture and forestry attraction, with a 2.69x concentration and 428 jobs in this sub-sector.

The concentrated base spans support activities for agriculture and forestry, sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, book, and misc. retailers, and beverage and tobacco product manufacturing, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 49.9% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.