Jobs
Much like a home, a stable, good paying job provides individuals and families with the ability to meet basic needs like food and shelter, plus the freedom to pursue educational, recreational, and cultural interests. Improving access to jobs – in the form of better transportation infrastructure and services – can expand people’s choices and improve their quality of life.
In this section, we address access to jobs by trying to answer a few basic questions:
- Where are our job centers (many employees, but few employers) and job clusters (many employees, and many employers)?
- Where might jobs grow?
- Where do transportation barriers – e.g., poor safety, reliability, or bus access – affect access to jobs?
Where are the jobs?
We have about 2,100 employers that employ over 112,000 workers in Dutchess County. Many of these employers and jobs are concentrated in the southwest section of the county along Route 9 from lower Hyde Park, south through Poughkeepsie, Wappinger-Wappingers Falls, and Fishkill, branching west along Route 52 to Beacon and east along I-84 to East Fishkill. This area accounts for more than 70 percent of all jobs in the county. There are smaller job centers in , LaGrange, Red Hook, and Rhinebeck.
Employers based in the City and Town of Poughkeepsie support the most jobs in the county: over 42,000 or almost 40 percent of all jobs. East Fishkill-based employers follow with about 9,000 jobs, and Wappinger-based employers at almost 7,400 jobs. Combined, these four communities support well over half of the county’s total jobs.
See our Barriers to Basic Needs Map for locations of job density.
Where are jobs growing?
Based on the Census Bureau’s 2023 job data for Dutchess County, the health care, education, and retail sectors continue to support almost half of the jobs in the county. In terms of growth, the education sector has seen the most gains in recent years, increasing by over 1,900 jobs from 2018-2023, followed by the transportation/warehouse sector at 550 more jobs, and the utility sector at 475. In contrast, the county’s manufacturing sector continues to decline, shedding over 1,100 jobs during the same five-year period.
Though we’re uncertain about the future of some sectors of our economy, particularly manufacturing and retail, we expect the health care and education sectors to maintain their importance in Dutchess. This will require us to ensure access to job centers such as the hospitals in Poughkeepsie and Rhinebeck, large medical offices in Poughkeepsie and Fishkill, and the colleges/universities in the county. The growth of e-commerce will also jobs in the transportation/warehouse sector (at least in the short-term), which will require us to maintain safe and reliable access at major highway facilities such as I-84, Route 9, and Route 52. And we will need to maintain access to large manufacturing facilities such as IBM in Poughkeepsie – which is still our biggest employer.
WHY ACCESS MATTERS
Improving access to jobs can come in the form of better infrastructure (such as safer roads) and transportation services (such as more convenient transit). Safe and reliable access, or the lack of it, can affect our job choices: it expands or limits where we can work, the type of work we can pursue, and the income we can earn.
OUR BIGGEST EMPLOYERS
The county’s top three employers – IBM, Vassar Brothers Medical Center, and Marist University – employ over 10,400 workers combined (9% of all jobs in the county).
Where are the jobs in Dutchess County?
| Municipality | Total Jobs | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Amenia | 1,748 | 2% |
| Beacon | 5,154 | 5% |
| Beekman | 1,219 | 1% |
| Clinton | 588 | 1% |
| Dover | 1486 | 1% |
| East Fishkill | 8,934 | 8% |
| Fishkill | 5,964 | 5% |
| Fishkill Village | 3,269 | 3% |
| Hyde Park | 5,622 | 5% |
| LaGrange | 5,470 | 5% |
| Milan | 308 | 0% |
| Millbrook Village | 734 | 1% |
| Millerton Village | 520 | 0% |
| North East | 798 | 1% |
| Pawling | 1,184 | 1% |
| Pawling Village | 890 | 1% |
| Pine Plains | 716 | 1% |
| Pleasant Valley | 2,219 | 2% |
| Poughkeepsie City | 14,032 | 13% |
| Poughkeepsie Town | 28,157 | 25% |
| Red Hook | 4,014 | 4% |
| Red Hook Village | 980 | 1% |
| Rhinebeck | 1,656 | 1% |
| Rhinebeck Village | 3,101 | 3% |
| Stanford | 536 | 0% |
| Tivoli Village | 166 | 0% |
| Union Vale | 680 | 1% |
| Wappinger | 7,384 | 7% |
| Wappingers Falls | 3,733 | 3% |
| Washington | 932 | 1% |
| Total | 112,196 |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2023 Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics program)
A NOTE ON OUR METHODOLOGY
You’ll notice that our discussion of job barriers looks a little different than our analyses of access to education, goods and services, and recreation. This is due to the geographical accuracy of the employment data, which lends itself to an area level analysis rather than street level. See our Methodology document for more information.
What jobs are in Dutchess County?
| Job Sector | Jobs | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Health Care | 21,071 | 19% |
| Education | 18,773 | 17% |
| Retail Trade | 12,667 | 11% |
| Accommodation & Food Services | 9,845 | 9% |
| Public Administration | 8,042 | 7% |
| Manufacturing | 7,374 | 7% |
| Administrative & Support | 5,875 | 5% |
| Construction | 5,497 | 5% |
| Other Services | 4,014 | 4% |
| Transportation & Warehousing | 3,931 | 4% |
| Professional, Scientific, & Technical | 3,727 | 3% |
| Finance & Insurance | 2,413 | 2% |
| Wholesale Trade | 1,870 | 2% |
| Arts, Entertainment, & Recreation | 1,455 | 1% |
| Real Estate, Rental, & Leasing | 1,401 | 1% |
| Utilities | 1,197 | 1% |
| Information | 1,147 | 1% |
| Management of Companies | 866 | 1% |
| Agriculture | 740 | 1% |
| Mining | 291 | 0% |
| Total | 112,196 |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2023 Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics program)
Where are the barriers?
Access to jobs is often limited by congestion, bus frequency, and the safety of walking and biking facilities. Transportation access poses a barrier to job centers and clusters, especially in locations with growing industries. Looking at our Barriers to Reliable Access Map, we can see that I-84, Route 9, and Route 52 in the Fishkill area experience some of the highest congestion in the county. This same area supports large medical offices, major retailers, and a regional warehouse.
Likewise, the I-84/Route 9D interchange experiences some of the worst congestion in the county, which affects interstate freight movement and access to and from the Beacon train station, a hub for workers and visitors traveling to the NYC metropolitan area. And Route 9 in Southern Dutchess – a commercial corridor that supports numerous jobs – also experiences measurable congestion. For highways like these, we can look at ways to make traffic flow better like improving traffic signals, consolidating driveways, and redesigning bottlenecks.
From our analysis of Bus Access, we can see that some major job centers and clusters along Route 52 in East Fishkill have infrequent or somewhat frequent bus service, which can pose a barrier to workers without a vehicle. , such as County Public Transit’s new Poughkeepsie-Amazon Express that connects workers to job centers in Fishkill and East Fishkill. Ecan also provide access to job sites.
Unsafe or inconvenient walking and bicycling access can also pose a barrier to jobs – especially where they are near housing, and the potential exists to connect residents to those jobs. Some of our highest-density residential areas are close to job centers but have poor walking and bicycling access to them. These barriers exist along major highway corridors such as Route 9 through Poughkeepsie, Wappingers Falls, Wappinger, and Fishkill, where residential and commercial centers are separated by a heavily traveled, multi-lane highway that makes walking and bicycling uncomfortable, unsafe, and inconvenient.
Besides transportation solutions, we can also improve job access by supporting land use policies and decisions that provide housing choices near job centers, which can open job opportunities, shorten commute times, and reduce transportation costs. We talk more about this in our Advocate section.
What We Heard
“Our young adult daughter lives with us. Because of health issues, she does not drive. She wants to find full-time work but will have to move where there is affordable housing, public transportation, and access to her health services.”
– Moving Dutchess Forward survey
REGIONAL JOB ACCESS
Though 69% of our residents work in Dutchess County, the remainder commute outside the county (see our Economic Trends section). Removing transportation barriers to jobs in the greater region – especially to Westchester County and New York City – is still an important consideration. We talk about ways to do this in Connect Mid-Hudson, our regional transit plan.
OUR CHALLENGE
Improving job access is a challenge that crosses jurisdictional boundaries – in many respects, our job landscape is the product of global and national economic trends. While some industries may shift to accommodate working from home, others such as health care, education, and manufacturing continue to require reliable, convenient and safe access.
What else should we consider?
We shouldn’t overlook the importance of strong and healthy communities – places with good housing, education, and services – in fostering a strong economy. Employers want a stable, educated workforce. Such a workforce doesn’t simply appear. It is built over time: the product of quality communities that attract people seeking a better life and employers seeking a talented workforce. Providing better educational opportunities and housing choices can make struggling communities more stable and more attractive to employers.
Our Role
Based on this analysis, our role could include the following:
- Reduce transportation reliability issues near job centers and clusters so they do not pose a barrier to workers accessing jobs.
- Maintain transportation infrastructure near job centers and clusters, ensuring that facilities such as roads and bridges do not pose a barrier to workers or businesses.
- Work with transit providers and employers to design and operate transit services that better serve workers and employers, whether by local bus, regional bus, commuter rail, or specialized services such as microtransit or employer-sponsored shuttles.
- Support walking and bicycling improvements that connect people to jobs, especially between high-density residential centers and nearby job centers.
- Work with County Planning and local Planning/Zoning Boards to promote housing development near job centers and clusters, helping to reduce commute times and transportation costs.
What is a living wage in Dutchess County?
| Hourly Living Wage | ||
|---|---|---|
| One Working Adult | No Child | $25.85 |
| 1 Child | $48.59 | |
| 2 Children | $61.90 | |
| 3 Children | $78.20 | |
| Two Adults (One Working) | No Child | $36.29 |
| 1 Child | $44.64 | |
| 2 Children | $48.92 | |
| 3 Children | $56.03 | |
| Two Adults (Both Working) | No Child | $18.14 |
| 1 Child | $26.91 | |
| 2 Children | $33.46 | |
| 3 Children | $40.79 |
Source: Living wage data sourced from the Living Wage Institute via https://livingwage.mit.edu. 2025.