2017 Spencer Comprehensive Land Use Plan

Spencer, Iowa  2017  Comprehensive Plan

COMMUTING PATTERNS According to U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey, the average commute time for Spencer residents is 14.6 minutes. While the short commute time suggests most residents are working in or near Spencer, statistics show only 50% of the workforce commuted less than 10 minutes to work. Therefore, nearly 50% of workers in Spencer, not working in the home, are commuting longer than 10 minutes to work, which means outside of the City of Spencer. It is reported 20.1% of the workforce in Spencer commutes 10-14 minutes to work, followed by another 7.8% of the workforce that commutes between 15-19 minutes. While nearly 79.8% of Spencer residents drive to work each day, another 8.9% carpool, 4.8% work at home, 3.2% walk to work and 2.6% bicycle to work.

88.7%

2.6%

3.2% Figure 25 - Spencer Commuting Methods

EMPLOYMENT BY INDUSTRY The charts below represent areas of employment by industrial sector for the City of Spencer and Clay County. The industry sector employing the greatest majority of the workforce in Spencer is the education services, and health care and social assistance sector. This category employs slightly less than a quarter or 24.4% of all civilian employees over 16 years of age in Spencer. The retail and wholesale sector is the second highest employee sector in the community comprising 23.9% of the workforce. In fact, a large percentage of the city’s workforce (62.9%) is comprised of only three industry classifications. The three industry sectors in which nearly 2 out of 3 people in Spencer work in are education/health/social services, retail/wholesale, and manufacturing.

Figure 26 - Employment by Industrial Sector, City of Spencer

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2009-2013 American Community Survey

Manufacturing 14.6%

Construction 5.7%

Retail/Wholesale 23.9%

Agriculture 3%

Information 4.8%

Other Services 3.5% Public Admin. 1.6%

Spencer

T.W.U. 3.8%

Recreation/Food Service 7.1%

F.I.R.E. 4.0%

T.W.U. - Transportation, Warehousing and Utilities; F.I.R.E. - Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate

Professional 3.5%

Education/Healh 24.4%

Like Spencer, Clay County’s top employment sector is the education services, and health care and social assistance (23.0%) followed secondly by the retail and wholesale employment sector (21.3%).

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NW Iowa Planning & Development