Delaware County, Ohio

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 4.5% below the national average, so the nominal median of $133,540 is worth $139,832 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Talent advantage: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment exceeds the national average by 23.7 pts, supports knowledge-economy and tech attraction.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 12,409 workers (16.2% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $36,357. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 9,656 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $19.1B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Management of Companies and Enterprises averages $142,285 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $26,939, a 5.3x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Management of Companies and Enterprises concentrates at 6.87x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 8 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 56.4% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: business and professional services. 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.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 3.3x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 78.5% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Affordable rent tiers: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $68,292 can pay without cost burden (~$1,707/mo), and 39.5% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 69.9% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Delaware County award 431 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Delaware County shows strong potential for management of companies and enterprises attraction, with a 6.87x concentration and 11,982 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Business and professional services accounts for 56.4% of it, all of it in management of companies and enterprises. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.