Eddy County, New Mexico

• 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 7.8% below the national average, so the nominal median of $78,426 is worth $85,061 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 16.4 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction employs 7,814 workers (29.1% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $109,426. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 4,079 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $11.3B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Manufacturing averages $110,209 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $28,973, a 3.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Support Activities for Mining concentrates at 83.95x 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, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 49.4% of the employment across them, the largest being resource and agricultural commodities. 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.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.7x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 73.3% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Vacancy level: 12% of housing units are vacant, below the New Mexico rate of 12.5%, and down from 13.5% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 40.1% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 16.1%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 23.5% of the vacant stock, or 2.8% of all housing units against the 12% 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: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $56,836 can pay without cost burden (~$1,421/mo), and 30% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 62.1% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 21.4-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.

Eddy County shows strong potential for support activities for mining attraction, with a 83.95x concentration and 5,091 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans support activities for mining, oil and gas extraction, and pipeline transportation, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 49.4% of the employment across them, the largest being resource and agricultural commodities. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.