89% of Cottage Grove’s working residents leave town for work
Most working residents leave Cottage Grove for work: only 11% work in town. The top destinations are St. Paul (16%), Minneapolis (10%) and Woodbury (6%). Half commute less than 14 miles.
What kind of work town is Cottage Grove?
Read from the numbers below. The page puts what stands out first.
Cottage Grove makes things: 38% of its jobs are in goods
10,552 jobs are based in Cottage Grove. Here is what they are, next to the jobs Cottage Grove’s own residents hold wherever they work.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Cottage Grove, 2013 → 2023: 5,407 → 10,552. 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.
16% of working residents work in St. Paul
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
Where Cottage Grove clocks in
16% of workers
10% of workers
6% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
Cottage Grove quiets down on a workday
On a workday 18,504 residents head out to work, 2,382 work right here, and 8,170 people come in from elsewhere.
About 31,000 people are in Cottage Grove on a workday afternoon, 25% fewer than live here.
0.51 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 Cottage Grove commutes less than 14 miles
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
Straight-line distance from each worker’s home block to their main job’s block. LEHD 2023.
About 24 minutes each way, about the MN average
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Cottage Grove workers work from home, vs 18% across Minnesota. Their commute is the hallway.
Cottage Grove and the towns next door
The biggest share goes to Woodbury (6%). Darker towns draw more of Cottage Grove’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
Average commute minutes, one way
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 Cottage Grove
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Cottage Grove, 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.