Giles County, Tennessee

• 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 $7,288 (10.5%) under the Tennessee median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 8.1% below the national average, so the nominal median of $62,307 is worth $67,799 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 15.6 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 44 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 2,880 workers (43.3% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $67,018. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,576 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.6B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Information averages $74,185 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $26,491, a 2.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Plastics and Rubber Products Manufacturing concentrates at 9.34x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 10 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 56.5% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: goods manufacturing. 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 3.8x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 73.3% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 15.2% of housing units are vacant, above the Tennessee rate of 10.2%, and down from 15.5% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 64.7% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 10%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 10.6% of the vacant stock, or 1.6% of all housing units against the 15.2% 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: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $40,110 can pay without cost burden (~$1,003/mo), and 31% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 25.9% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 56.6% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 5.1% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Giles County award 333 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Giles County shows strong potential for plastics and rubber products manufacturing attraction, with a 9.34x concentration and 395 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 25.9% 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. Goods manufacturing accounts for 56.5% of it, with transportation equipment manufacturing the largest single sub-sector at 30.1%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.