Guayama 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 $5,895 (22.4%) under the Puerto Rico median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Elevated poverty: At 49%, 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 10.5 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 42 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 1,688 workers (27.2% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $21,698. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 3,313 and is counted separately.
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $43,168 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $16,185, a 2.7x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: General Merchandise Retailers concentrates at 4.16x 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 79.6% 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.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 5.3x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• Vacancy level: 16.8% of housing units are vacant, below the Puerto Rico rate of 21%, and down from 23.2% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 76.7% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 15.2%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 6.2% of the vacant stock, or 1% of all housing units against the 16.8% 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 $14,023 can pay without cost burden (~$351/mo), and 31.8% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 15.7% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Low participation: 37.7% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 7.1% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Guayama Municipio award 475 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Guayama Municipio shows meaningful potential for general merchandise retailers attraction, with a 4.16x concentration and 662 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 79.6% of it, with general merchandise retailers the largest single sub-sector at 33.4%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.