Columbia County, Oregon

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Cost of living erodes income: Local prices run 5.4% above the national average, so the nominal median of $87,458 is worth $82,977 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 15.9 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 43 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 1,592 workers (17.7% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $36,291. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,945 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.1B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Construction averages $68,823 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $24,783, a 2.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 31.92x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 13 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 40.1% 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.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 4.8x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 76.1% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Rent affordability gap: None of the 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $55,375 can pay without cost burden (~$1,384/mo), and 51.7% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 20.1% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 24.6% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 57.9% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 5.4% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Columbia County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Columbia County shows strong potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 31.92x concentration and 114 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24.6% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans forestry and logging, wood product manufacturing, and mining (except oil and gas), and no single source of demand accounts for more than 40.1% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.