NAICS 621320 · California overview

Optometry Practices in Placer County

Placer County had 36 Optometry establishments in 2023, ranking 15 of 41 California counties and accounting for 1.3% of the statewide total.

Establishments (2023)
36
Rank 15 of 41 counties
Employees
238
Mid-March employment
Annual payroll
$11M
All establishments
Per 10k residents
0.8
442,081 residents

More recent reading

BLS QCEW, 2026Q1

The figures above are County Business Patterns, which carries the size distribution but runs about two years behind. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes quarterly, so this is the same industry roughly 3 years later. The two count different universes, Census counts establishments with paid employees in the March pay period and BLS counts worksites covered by unemployment insurance during the quarter, so the numbers are not directly comparable and either can be the larger.

Establishments
35
2026Q1
Employment
280
Quarter-end level
Average weekly wage
$1,001
Per covered worker
Quarterly trend
0.0%
2025Q2 to 2026Q1
Concentration vs the national averageBLS, 2026Q1

1.47 location quotient. Optometry employment in Placer County is about 1.5 times more concentrated than in the United States as a whole.

Computed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, not derived here. Above 1.0 means the industry is a larger share of local employment than of national employment.

Establishments by size

Employee-count distribution for Optometry in Placer County. 8 of 36 establishments (22%) employ 10 or more people, the practical floor for most acquisition financing.

EmployeesEstablishmentsShareDistribution
1-41233.3%
5-91644.4%
10-19513.9%
20-4938.3%

Establishment trend

Year-over-year establishment counts, County Business Patterns. Net decline of 2.7% since 2020.

YearEstablishmentsChange
202037n/a
202136-1
202235-1
202336+1

How this market compares

Placer County against every other county in California on the same measure. The median excludes places under 2,000 residents, where per-capita figures are arithmetically true but analytically useless.

Above average0.8 per 10,000 residents, against a state median of 0.6

More provision than the typical California market of this size. Usually a sign of genuine local demand rather than oversupply.

Vs state median
+39%
Businesses per resident
Rank by count
#15
of 41 counties
Rank by density
#7
of 41 ranked
Since 2020
-3%
Change in establishments

Density compares optometry practices provision per resident. It does not measure revenue, profitability or whether a market is worth entering.

Business size mix

Placer is more consolidated than California as a whole: fewer micro-operators and a larger share of businesses with real headcount. Fewer targets, but the ones that exist are more likely to be financeable.

Share of establishmentsPlacerCaliforniaDifference
Under 5 employeesOwner-operated, often no management layer33.3%49.3%-15.9%
5 to 49 employeesThe range most individual buyers target66.7%47.9%+18.7%
10 or more employeesPractical floor for acquisition financing22.2%14.2%+8.0%

What acquirers look at

Blends licensed professional services with high-margin retail optical. Retail revenue is transferable to a non-licensed owner in a way the clinical side is not.

Cities in Placer

The figures above cover the county as a whole. These are the places within it.

Other industries in Placer

Sources

  1. U.S. Census Bureau, 2023 County Business Patterns. Establishment counts, employment and annual payroll by NAICS. Retrieved 2026-09-08.
  2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (2026Q1). Quarterly establishment counts and employment for employers covered by unemployment insurance. Retrieved 2026-09-08.