Santa Fe County, New Mexico

• Income near the national median: Median household income tracks the national median, indicating a broad-based consumer market.
• Talent advantage: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment exceeds the national average by 10.4 pts, supports knowledge-economy and tech attraction.
• Aging population: Median age of 49 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 9,643 workers (23% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $35,213. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 15,370 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $10.1B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $144,135 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $35,213, a 4.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Museums, Historical Sites, and Similar concentrates at 4.20x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 14 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 51.5% 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, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 5.6x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 71.5% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Vacancy level: 10.2% of housing units are vacant, below the New Mexico rate of 12.5%, and down from 15.2% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 39.1% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 15.3% of the vacant stock, or 1.6% of all housing units against the 10.2% 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: 1 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $50,506 can pay without cost burden (~$1,263/mo), and 46% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 26.2% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 57.3% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 4.8% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: 5 institutions in Santa Fe County award 992 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Santa Fe County shows meaningful potential for museums, historical sites, and similar attraction, with a 4.20x concentration and 264 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 26.2% 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 51.5% of it, with food services and drinking places the largest single sub-sector at 35%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.