Mayagüez 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 $8,002 (30.4%) under the Puerto Rico median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Elevated poverty: At 53.3%, 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 8.4 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 5,031 workers (26.7% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $22,913. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 7,277 and is counted separately.
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $53,493 while Retail Trade averages $22,913, a 2.3x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Apparel Manufacturing concentrates at 51.53x 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, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 48.5% 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.
• Attraction whitespace: 4 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 6.1x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• Renter-majority market: 49.8% owner-occupied; flexible labor mobility but consider home-buying pipeline if attracting families.
• Elevated vacancy: 29.3% of housing units are vacant, above the Puerto Rico rate of 21%, and up from 27.4% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 59.6% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 17.1%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 17.4% of the vacant stock, or 5.1% of all housing units against the 29.3% headline vacancy rate. That is the figure to plan an incoming employer's housing against, 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 $11,254 can pay without cost burden (~$281/mo), and 35.7% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 23.3% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Low participation: 41.8% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 3.4% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Short commutes: 21.7-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 5 institutions in Mayagüez Municipio award 2,636 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Mayagüez Municipio shows strong potential for apparel manufacturing attraction, with a 51.53x concentration and 767 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans apparel manufacturing, clothing, clothing accessories, shoe, and jewelry retailers, and health and personal care retailers, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 48.5% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.