Suffolk County, New York

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Cost of living erodes income: Local prices run 12.6% above the national average, so the nominal median of $130,686 is worth $116,062 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Aging population: Median age of 42 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 111,152 workers (21.9% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $73,788. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 109,626 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $139B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $105,211 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $35,381, a 3.0x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation concentrates at 5.96x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 5 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 60.1% 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: 7 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 4.4x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 82.2% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 11.7% of housing units are vacant, above the New York rate of 10%, and down from 15% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 64.7% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 9.8% of the vacant stock, or 1.1% of all housing units against the 11.7% headline vacancy rate. Absorbable supply for an incoming employer is thin, and the gap between the two is the redevelopment and conversion opportunity.
• Rent affordability gap: None of the 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $72,488 can pay without cost burden (~$1,812/mo), and 54.3% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 30.8% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 24.3% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 65.5% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: the 6 largest of 10 institutions in Suffolk County award 14,297 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Suffolk County shows strong potential for transit and ground passenger transportation attraction, with a 5.96x concentration and 14,657 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24.3% 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 60.1% of it, with transit and ground passenger transportation the largest single sub-sector at 38.4%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.