Fajardo Municipio, Puerto Rico

• 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 $734 (2.8%) under the Puerto Rico median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Elevated poverty: At 40.4%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 6.9 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 45 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Accommodation and Food Services employs 2,041 workers (28.3% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $21,546. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,141 and is counted separately.
• Wage stratification: Manufacturing averages $45,476 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $21,546, a 2.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Health and Personal Care Retailers concentrates at 3.39x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 8 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 60.6% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: resident household spending. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 4.7x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 31.8% of housing units are vacant, above the Puerto Rico rate of 21%, and down from 33.3% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 42.1% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 5.6% of the vacant stock, or 1.8% of all housing units against the 31.8% headline vacancy rate. Absorbable supply for an incoming employer is thin, and the gap between the two is the redevelopment and conversion opportunity.
• Rent affordability gap: None of the 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $16,960 can pay without cost burden (~$424/mo), and 33.2% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 19% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Low participation: 49.3% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 2.3% between 2019 and 2024, from 13,625 to 13,310.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Fajardo Municipio award 297 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Fajardo Municipio shows meaningful potential for health and personal care retailers attraction, with a 3.39x concentration and 214 jobs in this sub-sector.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Resident household spending accounts for 60.6% of it, with educational services the largest single sub-sector at 22.7%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.