More Hampton Roads residents commuting to work outside their hometowns

Published September 15, 2015 by Robert Powell, III

A study commissioned by the Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance finds that more than 65 percent of the region’s residents live in one locality while working in another.

The study by economists James Koch and Vinod Agarwal of Old Dominion University, “Our Jobs Also are Your Jobs: Economic Interdependence in Hampton Roads,”  notes that the percentage of residents commuting outside their home city or county to work is climbing.

According to previous surveys, under 60 percent of workers were commuting to another locality in 2005, while 61 percent were following that trend in 2009.

“Economically speaking, we would be wise to treat Hampton Roads as one, large, interdependent economic unit,” writes Koch, who notes that “the economic benefits of any project of economic consequence inevitably spill across city and county lines.”

The study’s findings also showed:

•          27.2 percent of the people employed in Norfolk are residents of Virginia Beach. By comparison, 26.5 percent of the city workforce actually live in Norfolk.
•          17,776 workers commute from Chesapeake to Virginia Beach for their jobs.
•          On average, when 100 new jobs are created in Portsmouth, 19 of the workers filling those positions will be from Chesapeake, 10 will be from Norfolk, eight from Suffolk and seven from the Peninsula.
•          Hampton attracts 9,173 workers from Newport News, while Newport News attracts 13,893 workers from Hampton.
•          Residents of Williamsburg hold less than 8 percent of the jobs there.