The Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area is a national leader in finance, advanced manufacturing, agriculture and retailing.
Medical devices, electronics and processed foods are strong suits recognized globally.
Want the freshest data delivered by email? Subscribe to our regional newsletters.
2/19/2025 1:56:47 PM
Tim O'Neill
As the primary population center in Minnesota, the Seven-County Twin Cities Metro Area is home to a lot of people and a lot of jobs. That means a lot of commuting – people driving to and from for work. To get a sense of all this commuting, we can turn to the U.S. Census Bureau's OnTheMap, a web-based mapping and reporting application that shows where workers are employed and where they live. Using this tool, we can analyze commuting patterns by age, earnings, industry sector, race, ethnicity, sex and educational attainment. The data is derived from several sources, including Unemployment Insurance (UI) Wage Records, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) and other Census data.
| Table 1. Metro Area Inflow/Outflow Job Counts, 2022 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Category | Count | Share |
| Employed in the Metro Area | 1,747,560 | 100.0% |
| Employed in the Metro Area but Living Outside | 278,930 | 16.0% |
| Employed and Living in the Metro Area | 1,468,630 | 84.0% |
| Living in the Metro Area | 1,572,782 | 100.0% |
| Living in the Metro Area but Employed Outside | 104,152 | 6.6% |
| Living and Employed in the Metro Area | 1,468,630 | 93.4% |
| Source: U.S. Census Bureau, OnTheMap | ||
According to OnTheMap's most recent estimates, there were nearly 1,750,000 jobs filled in the seven-county metro area. Of those, nearly 1.5 million of these jobs were held by people who both lived and worked in the region. But in addition, nearly 279,000 people living outside of the Metro Area commute into the region for work each day, coming from surrounding counties like Chisago, Isanti, McLeod, Rice, Sherburne, Wright and more. Clearly, the Metro Area is a net importer of labor (Table 1).
| Table 2. Metro Area Outflow (Top Workplace Destinations), 2022 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| By Place | By County | ||||
| Place | Count | Share | County | Count | Share |
| All Places | 1,572,782 | 100.0% | All Counties | 1,572,782 | 100.0% |
| Minneapolis | 304,073 | 19.3% | Hennepin | 792,505 | 50.4% |
| St. Paul | 158,925 | 10.1% | Ramsey | 277,760 | 17.7% |
| Bloomington | 73,040 | 4.6% | Dakota | 150,507 | 9.6% |
| Eden Prairie | 58,538 | 3.7% | Anoka | 106,374 | 6.8% |
| Minnetonka | 43,712 | 2.8% | Washington | 70,516 | 4.5% |
| Plymouth | 42,534 | 2.7% | Scott | 40,231 | 2.6% |
| Eagan | 40,600 | 2.6% | Carver | 30,737 | 2.0% |
| Edina | 39,950 | 2.5% | Wright | 9,066 | 0.6% |
| St. Louis Park | 36,802 | 2.3% | St. Louis | 9,032 | 0.6% |
| Maple Grove | 30,084 | 1.9% | Olmsted | 6,213 | 0.4% |
| All Other Places | 744,524 | 47.3% | All Other Counties | 79,481 | 5.1% |
| Source: U.S. Census Bureau, OnTheMap | |||||
At the same time, over 104,000 Metro Area residents commute out of the region for work. So where are Metro Area residents driving to for work? By place, nearly one-in-five (19.3%) Metro Area commuters are driving to Minneapolis for work. Another one-in-ten (10.1%) commuters are heading to its twin city, St. Paul. Just about half of the region's commuters travel to one of ten cities for work each day (Table 2).
By county, half of the region's commuters head to Hennepin County. Fully two-thirds head to either Hennepin County or Ramsey County, with Dakota, Anoka and Washington counties rounding out the top five workplace destinations by county. Outside the region, workers commute to jobs at employers in counties including Wright, St. Louis and Olmsted, among many others.
| Table 3. Metro Area Inflow (Top Worker Origins), 2022 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| By Place | By County | ||||
| Place | Count | Share | County | Count | Share |
| All Places | 1,747,560 | 100.0% | All Counties | 1,747,560 | 100.0% |
| Minneapolis | 189,555 | 10.8% | Hennepin | 592,471 | 33.9% |
| St. Paul | 130,535 | 7.5% | Ramsey | 238,536 | 13.6% |
| Bloomington | 42,417 | 2.4% | Dakota | 204,910 | 11.7% |
| Brooklyn Park | 40,481 | 2.3% | Anoka | 175,754 | 10.1% |
| Plymouth | 37,962 | 2.2% | Washington | 129,398 | 7.4% |
| Woodbury | 37,080 | 2.1% | Scott | 74,939 | 4.3% |
| Maple Grove | 35,109 | 2.0% | Carver | 52,622 | 3.0% |
| Blaine | 34,327 | 2.0% | Wright | 44,075 | 2.5% |
| Lakeville | 33,905 | 1.9% | Sherburne | 27,535 | 1.6% |
| Eagan | 33,870 | 1.9% | St. Croix, WI | 20,179 | 1.2% |
| All Other Places | 1,132,319 | 64.8% | All Other Counties | 187,141 | 10.7% |
| Source: U.S. Census Bureau, OnTheMap | |||||
And where are those who work in the Metro Area coming from? No surprises here, Minneapolis and St. Paul top the list for worker origins in the region. Just over one-third (35.2%) of the Metro Area's workers commute from one of ten cities (all of which happen to be in the region itself). By county, over three-quarters (76.7%) of the Metro Area's workers hail from Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, Anoka and Washington counties. The county outside of the region that sends in the most workers each day is Wright County, where just over 44,000 people commute into the Metro Area for work daily. About 235,000 workers from other counties also commute to jobs at employers that are located in the Twin Cities.
Contact Tim O'Neill, Labor Market Analyst, at timothy.oneill@state.mn.us.
