Get to Work! How Oregonians Commute to Work

Most Oregonians work in the same county that they live in. However, 20 percent of Oregonians work outside the county they live in. And in a few Oregon counties, about half the workers leave their home to work. Moving half the workforce out – and back into – a community every day puts an unusually large amount of pressure on local transportation systems.

Clackamas County has the largest population leaving the county to work every day, with 91,000 workers. That’s 48 percent of the workers living in Clackamas County. For context, that’s larger than the entire working population living in the Bend metro region. The vast bulk of those commuting workers are traveling to other counties within the Portland region. By contrast, in neighboring Multnomah County only 18 percent of the workers commute outside of the county.

Two smaller counties at the edge of the Portland region have relatively high numbers of commuters. Columbia County (49%) at the northern end of the Portland region and Yamhill County (35%) at the southwest edge. These are both rural economies with relatively smaller populations compared with the rest of the Portland region. Polk County has the majority of its workforce leaving the county to work. West Salem is in Polk County, while the rest of the City of Salem is in Marion County, dividing the second largest city in Oregon between two counties.

To learn more about Oregon commuters, read the full article written by workforce analyst Christian Kaylor.