Commuting Flows

Commutation flows show patterns of workers’ movement from home to work and vice versa. They are created by combining the location of the respondent’s primary job during the survey week and residence location from the American Community Survey (ACS) which is an ongoing nationwide household survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.

They are special tabulations produced from 5-year ACS estimates which are from survey data pooled over a 5-year period.

They are produced every five years, using non-overlapping 5-year ACS estimates. The most recent available is the 2016-2020 5-year data. Other commuting flows products are occasionally produced in conjunction with special projects during interim years.

This dashboard provides tabulations at the county and New York State labor market region levels of geography.

We recommend using the coefficient of variation (CV), which is a measure of how reliable an estimate is, as a guide and suppressing any estimate with a CV greater than 35%. CV information is available by hovering over the displayed data.

The dashboard below allows you to explore commutation flows for counties and NYS labor market regions.

Topics covered include ACS data on:

Inflow by County – Allows you to retrieve data on the number of workers in each NYS county and what county they reside in.

Outflow by County – Allows you to retrieve data on the number of employed NYS residents in each county and what county they work in.

Flows by Labor Market Region – Allows you to retrieve data on the flow of NYS workers and employed residents within labor market regions.

To learn more about how to use Tableau and download data, check out our guide Tableau Tips for the Web.

If you are having trouble accessing the data provided below because you are using assistive technology, please reach out to the State Data Center for assistance. [email protected]

For more information on ACS commuting flow data and to access spreadsheets with the source data visit: https://www.census.gov/topics/employment/commuting/guidance/flows.html

This workforce product was funded by a grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration.