Union County, Oregon

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Elevated poverty: At 16.1%, the rate is in distressed-county territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 9.6 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest sector: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 1,820 workers (24.3% of the top displayed sectors), at an average wage of $61,367.
• Wage stratification: Health Care and Social Assistance averages $61,367 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $22,872, a 2.7x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Wood Product Manufacturing concentrates at 17.93x 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, suggesting an interconnected industrial base rather than reliance on a single employer or sector.
• Attraction whitespace: 8 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 4.5x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Affordable rent tiers: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$1,642/mo).

• Strong participation: 83.6% labor force participation among working-age residents indicates an engaged, available workforce.
• Short commutes: 16.3-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 6 local institutions feed the workforce; the top three combined produce 21,110 annual credentials.

Union County shows strong potential for wood product manufacturing attraction, with a 17.93x concentration and 500 jobs in this sub-sector, it ranks in the top decile nationally.

The interconnected base across wood product manufacturing, forestry and logging, and support activities for agriculture and forestry creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.

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