More Macon County workers drive south to Randolph County for their jobs than go north to Adair County, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Macon Chronicle reported Oct. 19 that about one in three working Macon County residents has a job outside the county. The Census Bureau's county-to-county commuting flows show where they head out to.
About 782 Macon County residents worked in Randolph County, home to Moberly and Huntsville, according to the bureau's American Community Survey flows for 2016 through 2020, the most recent it has published. About 598 worked in Adair County, home to Kirksville.
Those two counties took about two of every three Macon County residents who worked outside the county.
Here is where Macon County's roughly 6,290 working residents had their jobs, according to the flows:
- Macon County: 4,218
- Randolph County: 782
- Adair County: 598
- Boone County: 133
- Linn County: 105
- Shelby County: 69
- Marion County: 59
- Outside Missouri: 97
No other Missouri county drew more than about 35 Macon County workers.
Who comes in
Traffic runs the other way, too. About 5,490 people worked in Macon County, and about 1,270 of them, or 23%, lived in another county, according to the flows.
Adair County sent the most, about 288 workers. Shelby County sent about 236, Randolph County about 222, Linn County about 166, and Chariton County about 75.
That leaves Macon County with about 800 more workers leaving each day than coming in.
The trade is lopsided with Randolph County. About 782 Macon County residents worked there, while about 222 Randolph County residents worked in Macon County. With Adair County, about 598 went north and about 288 came south.
Shelby, Linn, and Chariton counties send more workers into Macon County than they receive from it. Shelby County sent about 236 and took about 69.
Newer job records show the same pull
The Census Bureau's Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics program, which matches jobs to workers' home addresses using employer records, shows the same top two destinations in its 2023 data. Randolph County held about 528 jobs filled by Macon County residents and Adair County about 466, according to the program's origin-destination files.
The two sources count differently. The survey asks where each worker's main job is. The employer records count jobs, so a person with two jobs counts twice, and some jobs are tied to a company's reporting address rather than the work site. The totals do not match, but the ranking does.
The survey figures are estimates from a sample. The margin of error is about 158 workers for the Randolph County flow and about 103 for Adair County.