Hickory is a medium-sized city located in the state of North Carolina. With a population of 44,084 people and 17 associated neighborhoods, Hickory is the 24th largest community in North Carolina.Unlike some cities where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Hickory is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Hickory is a city of professionals, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Hickory who work in management occupations (12.76%), sales jobs (11.11%), and office and administrative support (9.04%). Also of interest is that Hickory has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US. One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 9.55% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes. The citizens of Hickory are very well educated compared to the average community in the nation: 36.48% of adults in Hickory have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree. The per capita income in Hickory in 2022 was $35,340, which is upper middle income relative to North Carolina and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $141,360 for a family of four. However, Hickory contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Hickory is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Hickory home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Hickory residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Hickory also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 13.18% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Hickory include English, German, Irish, European, and Italian. The most common language spoken in Hickory is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Miao/Hmong.
