Most of Sawmills commutes out: there are 0.3 jobs for every working resident
Home is the office for 5% of workers, next to 16% for North Carolina as a whole. Employers in Sawmills report 632 jobs for 2,145 working residents. Jobs and income earn Sawmills C; getting around on foot earns it D.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Sawmills apart on work
Sawmills makes and builds things
45% of the jobs based in Sawmills are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Sawmills residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 30%. The jobs ↓
Sawmills is a place people come home to
There are 632 jobs based in Sawmills, about three for every ten working residents, so almost everyone works somewhere else. On a workday Sawmills has about 3,600 people in it, 30% fewer than live here. Day and night ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2023, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey.
The figures behind Sawmills’ Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Sawmills is better than 33% of U.S. towns, #178 of 290 in North Carolina. The poverty rate holds Sawmills’ grade up (9.9%, U.S. 12.5%); unemployment pulls it down (8.0%, U.S. 5.2%).
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Sawmills could be anywhere from C− to A−.
Sawmills makes things: 45% of its jobs are in goods
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Sawmills, 2013 → 2023: 565 → 632. 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.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Sawmills’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who commutes out of Sawmills, and who commutes in
On a workday 2,100 residents head out to work, 45 work right here, and 587 people come in from elsewhere.
About 3,600 people are in Sawmills on a workday afternoon, 30% fewer than live here.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
17% of working residents work in Hickory
Where Sawmills clocks in
17% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
A commute of about 23 minutes in Sawmills
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Sawmills workers work from home, vs 16% across North Carolina. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 2,278 commuters (the 5% who work from home are left out). Across North Carolina: 85% drive alone, 1% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Half of Sawmills commutes less than 11 miles
About 19% 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.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
In Sawmills, most people drive to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Sawmills is more walkable than 11% of U.S. towns, #272 of 290 in North Carolina. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: hardly any commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 2.9% across North Carolina.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 2,392 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service: no data. EPA’s transit file has no stops for most of this county (its agencies had not published schedules in the format EPA used in 2020). That is missing data, not a finding that there is no bus or train.
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 3.8% of Sawmills households have no vehicle (North Carolina 5.3%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Sawmills’ commuters take a bus or train.
Sawmills places 2,568th of 3,627 on jobs and income among U.S. towns of 3,600 to 6,900
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Riverwoods IL | 3,766 | $249K | 0.7% | 0.7% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Huntington Woods MI | 6,274 | $190K | 2.2% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Glendale MO | 6,060 | $171K | 2.0% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 89 | Jamestown NC | 3,803 | $105K | 2.5% | 0.7% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 196 | Fairview NC | 3,805 | $99K | 1.8% | 1.8% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 295 | Midland NC | 5,151 | $101K | 4.1% | 1.8% | 3% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 2,566 | Charlotte Harbor FL | 4,239 | $40K | 20.5% | 2.1% | 6% | C |
| 2,567 | Attalla AL | 5,807 | $59K | 11.3% | 5.5% | 11% | C |
| 2,568 | Sawmills NC | 5,105 | $71K | 9.9% | 8.0% | 2% | C |
| 2,569 | Everman TX | 6,537 | $68K | 20.8% | 10.9% | 5% | C |
| 2,570 | Manti UT | 3,794 | $63K | 14.8% | 1.6% | 14% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 3,627 | Lake Isabella CA | 4,059 | $27K | 40.7% | 8.6% | 18% | D− |
Census ACS 2020–24 (income, poverty, unemployment), Census LEHD (work in town), TownRatings Jobs & income grades. Each town links to its Work & commute page.
Ranked on the Jobs & income grade: the towns either side of Sawmills, the top three, the last and three more from North Carolina.
Next door is work for 20% of Sawmills
The biggest share goes to Lenoir (14%).
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
Darker towns draw more of Sawmills’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Two sources, two years. Trips, distances and jobs based here: Census LEHD 2023, primary jobs, where the employer reports them. Income, poverty, unemployment, commute time and how people travel: Census ACS 2020–24 averages.
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Sawmills: questions
What is the median household income in Sawmills?
$71,067 (±$12,767) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $72,388 across North Carolina and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Sawmills?
9.9%, against 13.0% across North Carolina and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Sawmills?
23 minutes each way on average, against 25 across North Carolina and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Sawmills work?
2% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Hickory (17%, 10 mi), Lenoir (14%, 7 mi), Hudson (6%, 2 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Sawmills walkable?
Sawmills is more walkable than 11% of U.S. towns (Walkability D): an EPA walkability index of 5.6 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Sawmills without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 4% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Sawmills, from the people who make the trip.
More of Sawmills
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. Walkability index, job access and transit service: U.S. EPA Smart Location Database. The two grades are our own summaries of these figures, not official ratings.