#### The Fairfax County Workforce

##### The page provides a demographic overview of Fairfax County workers.
eda geospatial interactive map socio-demographics sectors

### Approach

This page characterizes the Fairfax County workforce. To do this, we used two datasets to better understand the population of individuals with job locations in Fairfax County. LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES) data provide worker race, ethnicity, education, gender, and industry data at census block group level. We retrieved these characteristics from the 2017 LODES data, which we summarized at the workplace county level to provide an overview of Fairfax County’s workforce. We supplement these LODES data with information from the American Community Survey (ACS). ACS is an annual survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau that provides 5-year estimates of population and housing characteristics. We used 2014/18 ACS ddata to supplement LODES with workplace Census tract data for workers’ age and means of commuting to work.

### Which are the Most Prominent Sectors in Fairfax County?

This bar chart shows the number of jobs in Fairfax County by sectors. The sector that employs the most workers are professional, scientific, and technical services. This continues the idea that the Fairfax County workforce is generally highly educated and has opportunity to earn. Further, the majority of employment opportunities in this highly represented sector are unlikely to experience significant impacts from the pandemic. However, this does not suggest that the county will not experience any impacts; the second and third most-represented sectors are healthcare services and retail. Workers employed in healthcare and retail are more likely at risk for furloughs, unemployment, and income loss.

### How do Workers Travel to Work?

The following maps provide more detail about the workforce in Fairfax County at workplace census tract level. The first tab provides maps of percent workers by means of transportation to work. Census tracts that workers primarily reach by driving will likely experience fewer covid-related disruptions, since workers can travel to their work locations in a “socially distant” way. Conversely, areas where people primarily carpooled or used public transit may be more vulnerable to return-to-work disruptions, and may have to navigate public transit restrictions, limitations, or shutdowns.

The second tab shows workplace census tracts by percent of workers in certain age brackets. For example, the map of percent workers age 60 to 64 highlights areas of Fairfax County in which a higher proportion of workers is likely to retire in the near term.