Dunn County, North Dakota

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 11.0% below the national average, so the nominal median of $97,689 is worth $109,763 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 10.5 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction employs 463 workers (33.5% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $139,054. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 377 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.9B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction averages $139,054 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $18,394, a 7.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Oil and Gas Extraction concentrates at 182.78x 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, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 40.7% 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.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.8x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 74.3% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 24.8% of housing units are vacant, above the North Dakota rate of 12.3%, and down from 35.4% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 59.8% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 8.9% of the vacant stock, or 2.2% of all housing units against the 24.8% headline vacancy rate. Absorbable supply for an incoming employer is thin, and the gap between the two is the redevelopment and conversion opportunity.
• Broadly affordable rents: All 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes shown above sit below what a household on the median renter income of $95,938 can pay without cost burden (~$2,398/mo), and 9.4% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened; a cost-of-living advantage for workforce attraction.

• Succession risk is real: 22.9% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 64.6% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Dunn County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Dunn County shows strong potential for oil and gas extraction attraction, with a 182.78x concentration and 260 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 22.9% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans oil and gas extraction, pipeline transportation, and truck transportation, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 40.7% of the employment across them, the largest being resource and agricultural commodities. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.