Most Mid-Hudson Valley residents are not satisfied with the jobs available in their community. 58% of Mid-Hudson Valley residents do not describe the quality of jobs positively. Over one-third of residents in the region, 37%, rates creating quality jobs a ten the highest score on a scale from 0 to 10 as a priority for their community.
In order to keep up with the cost of living, many Mid-Hudson Valley residents are working harder. Residents in households with higher income are more likely to hold more jobs, work long hours, and have a long commute.
In the Mid-Hudson region, the average number of employed residents in a household is 1.8. 51% of Mid-Hudson Valley households include at least two adult earners including 14% of households in which three or more adults work for pay.
When considering households in which at least one person works, the average number of jobs per household is 2.3.
A look at the household level indicates that 55% of Mid-Hudson Valley households have at least two jobs. This includes households where two adult earners work, as well as, those households where one adult holds more than one job. This pattern is consistent throughout the Mid-Hudson region.
The proportion of households with multiple jobs increases as household income rises. For instance, 77% of households with income of $100,000 or more hold at least two jobs, that is, they have at least two wage earners or one wage earner with two jobs. Nearly one-third of these households hold three or more jobs. This compares with 40% of households with income of less than $50,000 who hold at least two jobs.
On average, Mid-Hudson Valley residents work 43 hours each week. This is fairly consistent throughout the region. Dutchess, Orange, and Ulster County residents work, on average, just fractions above 42 hours per week. Greene County residents work an average of 44.2 hours per week. Columbia and Putnam County residents average 45.4 hours per week, and Sullivan County residents spend about 46.4 hours at their job in an average work week.
74% of employed Mid-Hudson Valley residents work forty hours or more each week including 33% of workers who work more than fifty hours a week.
There are again differences based on income. Households with income of less than $50,000 work an average of 40.4 hours per week. This compares with residents in households with income of at least six figures who work 46.7 hours, on average, per week.
Mid-Hudson Valley residents who are employed travel an average of 28.0 minutes to get to work each day. One-third of employed residents commute less than fifteen minutes and 39% travel between fifteen and thirty minutes one way to get to work daily. One in five workers experience travel times between thirty-one minutes and an hour, and 8% travel over an hour away from their homes to their jobs.
Employed Columbia County residents have the shortest commute time of people who work in the Mid-Hudson Valley. On average, people who work in Columbia County travel just under twenty-one minutes one way to their job. At the other extreme, employed Putnam County residents have the longest average commute time among the seven counties in the region. Putnam County workers travel
an average of just less than thirty-five minutes one way to work each day.
Workers with jobs that earn a higher income generally spend more time traveling to and from their job than workers employed at jobs with a lower income. Employed residents with an annual household income less than $50,000, on average, travel just 21.7 minutes to get to work each day. This compares with an average commuting time of 34.3 minutes one way for employed residents with a household income of at least $100,000.
Most employed residents believe, if they were to lose their job, it would be a challenge to find a similar position about the same distance from their home. Under these circumstances, 60% of employed Mid-Hudson Valley residents think it would be difficult to find a comparable job about the same distance from their home. This includes three out of ten working residents who say it would be very difficult to do so.
There are differences at the county level. Workers living in Greene and Sullivan Counties are the most likely to think they would have a difficult time securing a similar job within the same distance from their home. Seven in ten employed residents in both of these counties anticipate they would have a hard time finding a new job without changing the amount of time they currently travel.
Even though a majority of employed Putnam County residents thinks it would be difficult to secure a new job if they lost their current one, they are the most confident workers in the region about their chances of obtaining another job as close to home. 47% of Putnam County workers do not think it would be difficult to find another job the same distance from their home as their current job.
Around six in ten workers in the other four Mid-Hudson Valley counties think they would have a hard time finding a new job with a comparable commute time.
Although a majority of workers think it would be difficult to find a new job comparable to their current one within the same commuting distance from their home, workers with lower income jobs are more likely than employed residents with higher income jobs to be concerned. Two-thirds of workers with a household income of less than $50,000 think they would have a hard time finding a new job within the same distance from their home as their current one. This compares with 57% of residents employed at a job with an income of $75,000 or more who think it would be a challenge to find a comparable position within the same commuting time to their home.
