Tazewell County, Virginia

• 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 $45,857 (49.2%) under the Virginia median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Elevated poverty: At 18.5%, 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 19.1 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 45 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 2,644 workers (34.8% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $30,466. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 3,250 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.7B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction averages $99,627 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $20,968, a 4.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Mining (except Oil and Gas) concentrates at 11.96x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 11 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 69.6% 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.
• Attraction whitespace: 3 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.5x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 74.4% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 17.6% of housing units are vacant, above the Virginia rate of 8.7%, and down from 20.3% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 61.4% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 13.4%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 16.2% of the vacant stock, or 2.8% of all housing units against the 17.6% 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 $33,916 can pay without cost burden (~$848/mo), and 35.7% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 24% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 44.9% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 9.2% between 2019 and 2024, from 16,222 to 14,729.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Tazewell County award 944 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Tazewell County shows strong potential for mining (except oil and gas) attraction, with a 11.96x concentration and 180 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24% 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. Resident household spending accounts for 69.6% of it, with general merchandise retailers the largest single sub-sector at 27.1%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.