Craven County, North Carolina

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Below the state median: Median household income runs $6,515 (9.0%) under the North Carolina median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 5.7% below the national average, so the nominal median of $65,873 is worth $69,855 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 8.2 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 5,379 workers (21.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $34,866. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 13,105 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $6.9B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Wholesale Trade averages $93,472 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $21,335, a 4.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 7.38x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 11 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 44.7% 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: 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 3.5x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Vacancy level: 11.7% of housing units are vacant, below the North Carolina rate of 12.5%, and down from 12.6% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 43.6% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 23.1%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 23.1% of the vacant stock, or 2.7% 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.
• Affordable rent tiers: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $43,609 can pay without cost burden (~$1,090/mo), and 42.8% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 58.7% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 2.8% between 2019 and 2024, from 49,973 to 48,594.
• Short commutes: 21.7-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Craven County awards 1,198 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Craven County shows strong potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 7.38x concentration and 73 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans forestry and logging, fabricated metal product manufacturing, and motor vehicle and parts dealers, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 44.7% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.