85% of Chief Lake’s working residents leave town for work
Most working residents leave Chief Lake for work: only 15% work in town. The top destinations are Hayward (41%), Bass Lake (18%) and Hayward (9%). Half commute less than 6 miles.
What kind of work town is Chief Lake?
Read from the numbers below. The page puts what stands out first.
61% of Chief Lake works in a bordering town
The biggest share goes to Hayward (41%). Darker towns draw more of Chief Lake’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
Average commute minutes, one way
Half of Chief Lake commutes less than 6 miles
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
About 25% 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.
Chief Lake fills up on a workday
On a workday 190 residents head out to work, 34 work right here, and 287 people come in from elsewhere.
About 760 people are in Chief Lake on a workday afternoon, 15% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.43 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.
41% of working residents work in Hayward
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
Where Chief Lake clocks in
41% of workers
9% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
Mostly services: health care, schools and offices
321 jobs are based in Chief Lake. Here is what they are, next to the jobs Chief Lake’s own residents hold wherever they work.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Chief Lake, 2013 → 2023: 757 → 321. 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 19 minutes each way, quicker than most of Wisconsin
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.1 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Chief Lake workers work from home, vs 13% across Wisconsin. 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 Chief Lake
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Chief 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.