97% of Portage Lakes’s working residents leave town for work
Most working residents leave Portage Lakes for work: only 3% work in town. The top destinations are Akron (26%), Green (5%) and Cleveland (4%). Half commute less than 10 miles.
What kind of work town is Portage Lakes?
Read from the numbers below. The page puts what stands out first.
31% of Portage Lakes works in a bordering town
The biggest share goes to Akron (26%). Darker towns draw more of Portage Lakes’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
Average commute minutes, one way
What the 2,274 jobs in Portage Lakes are
2,274 jobs are based in Portage Lakes. Here is what they are, next to the jobs Portage Lakes’s own residents hold wherever they work.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Portage Lakes, 2013 → 2023: 1,868 → 2,274. 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.
Portage Lakes quiets down on a workday
On a workday 2,802 residents head out to work, 101 work right here, and 2,173 people come in from elsewhere.
About 5,300 people are in Portage Lakes on a workday afternoon, 11% fewer than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (0.78 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
26% of working residents work in Akron
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
Where Portage Lakes clocks in
26% of workers
5% of workers
4% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
Half of Portage Lakes commutes less than 10 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 21 minutes each way, quicker than most of Ohio
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Portage Lakes workers work from home, vs 13% across Ohio. Their commute is the hallway.
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 Portage Lakes
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Portage Lakes, 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.