Newport County, Rhode Island

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Talent advantage: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment exceeds the national average by 18.4 pts, supports knowledge-economy and tech attraction.
• Aging population: Median age of 47 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 7,632 workers (25% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $37,102. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 8,317 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $8.8B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Manufacturing averages $105,047 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $37,102, a 2.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Scenic and Sightseeing Transportation concentrates at 12.27x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 14 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 50% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: visitor economy. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.
• Attraction whitespace: 4 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed and clear the local siting screen on energy cost, freight access and land base, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 5.9x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 15.6% of housing units are vacant, above the Rhode Island rate of 9.1%, and down from 18.3% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 65.1% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 15.7% of the vacant stock, or 2.4% of all housing units against the 15.6% 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 $70,086 can pay without cost burden (~$1,752/mo), and 47% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 25.6% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 64% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Newport County award 859 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Newport County shows strong potential for scenic and sightseeing transportation attraction, with a 12.27x concentration and 97 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 25.6% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Visitor economy accounts for 50% of it, with food services and drinking places the largest single sub-sector at 31.1%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.