Charleston County, South Carolina

• 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 14.6 pts, supports knowledge-economy and tech attraction.

• Largest private-sector industry: Accommodation and Food Services employs 36,404 workers (18.1% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $34,418. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 51,398 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $50.5B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $144,308 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $34,418, a 4.2x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Scenic and Sightseeing Transportation concentrates at 5.46x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 12 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 28.2% 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: 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 5.5x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 14.7% of housing units are vacant, above the South Carolina rate of 13.3%, and down from 15.3% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 35.7% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 32.7% of the vacant stock, or 4.8% of all housing units against the 14.7% 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 $56,259 can pay without cost burden (~$1,406/mo), and 49.9% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 25.9% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Healthy participation: 66% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: the 6 largest of 10 institutions in Charleston County award 8,210 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Charleston County shows strong potential for scenic and sightseeing transportation attraction, with a 5.46x concentration and 288 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans scenic and sightseeing transportation, transportation equipment manufacturing, and water transportation, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 28.2% of the employment across them, the largest being visitor economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.