Chelan County, Washington

• Income near the national median: Median household income tracks the national median, indicating a broad-based consumer market.
• Below the state median: Median household income runs $15,760 (16.1%) under the Washington median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 7,105 workers (25.9% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $77,321. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 7,180 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $7.1B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Construction averages $94,496 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $31,682, a 3.0x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Support Activities for Agriculture and Forestry concentrates at 35.82x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 7 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 61.7% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: resource and agricultural commodities. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.

• 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: 18.5% of housing units are vacant, above the Washington rate of 7.3%, and down from 24.7% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 78.5% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 8.8% of the vacant stock, or 1.6% of all housing units against the 18.5% 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 $53,153 can pay without cost burden (~$1,329/mo), and 37.5% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 22.6% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 59.6% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 2.8% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Short commutes: 20.2-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Chelan County awards 926 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Chelan County shows strong potential for support activities for agriculture and forestry attraction, with a 35.82x concentration and 3,984 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 22.6% 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. Resource and agricultural commodities accounts for 61.7% of it, with support activities for agriculture and forestry the largest single sub-sector at 31.8%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.