98% of Clear Lake’s working residents leave town for work
Most working residents leave Clear Lake for work: only 2% work in town. The top destinations are St. Cloud (24%), Becker (6%) and Clearwater (3%). Half commute less than 15 miles.
What kind of work town is Clear Lake?
Read from the numbers below. The page puts what stands out first.
24% of working residents work in St. Cloud
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
Where Clear Lake clocks in
24% of workers
6% of workers
3% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
33% of Clear Lake works in a bordering town
The biggest share goes to St. Cloud (24%). Darker towns draw more of Clear Lake’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
Average commute minutes, one way
Clear Lake makes things: 40% of its jobs are in goods
274 jobs are based in Clear Lake. Here is what they are, next to the jobs Clear Lake’s own residents hold wherever they work.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Clear Lake, 2013 → 2023: 135 → 274. Big swings can come from how a large employer reports its locations, not only from real openings or closings.
Primary jobs covered by unemployment insurance (not the self-employed). Pay is monthly earnings. LEHD 2023.
About 32 minutes each way, longer than most of Minnesota
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 10.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Clear Lake workers work from home, vs 18% across Minnesota. Their commute is the hallway.
Clear Lake quiets down on a workday
On a workday 930 residents head out to work, 20 work right here, and 254 people come in from elsewhere.
About 850 people are in Clear Lake on a workday afternoon, 44% fewer than live here.
0.29 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute out.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
Half of Clear Lake commutes less than 15 miles
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
About 16% show a job over 50 miles away. Some of that is real, and some is employers that report every worker at a head office, so a few long commutes are on paper only.
Straight-line distance from each worker’s home block to their main job’s block. LEHD 2023.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Every worker, home to work. The Census links each worker’s home block to their main job’s block, for jobs covered by unemployment insurance. That’s most jobs, but not the self-employed.
- Where the employer says. A job counts where the employer reports it. Some big employers report one address for many sites, which can make a few commutes look longer than they are.
- Two surveys. Flows, distances and jobs: LEHD 2023. Commute time, working from home and working out of state: the Census American Community Survey.
- Straight lines. Distances are as the crow flies between home and work. Roads, rivers and traffic make the real trip longer.
More of Clear Lake
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Clear Lake, from the people who make the trip.
Your answer becomes a post in Town Square.
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2023, primary jobs. Commute time, working from home and working out of state: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Distances are straight lines between home and work; real drives run longer.