Deschutes 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 3.6% above the national average, so the nominal median of $92,758 is worth $89,535 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 9.3 pts, supports knowledge-economy and tech attraction.
• 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: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 16,432 workers (22.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $83,270. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 10,539 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $16.7B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $111,584 while Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation averages $32,855, a 3.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 4.18x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 10 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 36.6% of the employment across them, the largest being visitor economy. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.
• Attraction whitespace: 5 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 7.0x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 14.5% of housing units are vacant, above the Oregon rate of 7.5%, and down from 16.1% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 76.8% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 10.3% of the vacant stock, or 1.5% of all housing units against the 14.5% 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 $65,901 can pay without cost burden (~$1,648/mo), and 47% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 63.6% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 19.6-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 4 institutions in Deschutes County award 1,168 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Deschutes County shows meaningful potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 4.18x concentration and 120 jobs in this sub-sector.

The concentrated base spans forestry and logging, beverage and tobacco product manufacturing, and accommodation, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 36.6% of the employment across them, the largest being visitor economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.