SALISBURY — The number of Rowan County residents who work in their home county has decreased slightly, according to five-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The estimates are from the American Community Survey, a nationwide and ongoing effort to collect demographic, social, economic and housing statistics annually. Results for 2016’s survey were released Thursday.

According to the report, 63.1 percent of Rowan County’s 56,970 workers over age 16 worked in the county in 2016.

That is a loss of 1.8 percent compared to 2015’s estimate of 64.9 percent.

Rowan saw the greatest drop in home-county workers when compared to neighboring counties. Davie County saw a 1.6 percent decrease from 2015 to 2016; Davidson, a 0.9 percent decrease; Stanly, 0.2 percent; and Cabarrus, 0.1 percent.

Iredell County saw no change.

When compared to those five counties, Rowan has the third-largest percentage of home-county workers.

Stanly is second with 65.6 percent; Iredell claimed first with 67.8 percent.

Davie remains at the bottom of the list, with only 39 percent of workers employed within the county.

Other statistics from the survey included means of transportation, one-way travel time and the number of vehicles available per working home.

Some 83 percent of Rowan County workers surveyed drove to work alone. Of the remaining workers, 10.3 percent carpooled, 0.3 percent took public transportation, 1.8 percent walked and 3.4 percent worked from home.

Some 1.2 percent of workers commuted in other ways such as by taxi or motorcycle.

Rowan County had the lowest number of workers who drove to work alone when compared to surrounding counties.

Davie County had the highest percentage, with some 93.3 percent of commuters driving to work alone.

Most Rowan workers had a 15- to 19-minute commute, at 17.8 percent. The mean one-way travel time for all Rowan commuters was 24.4 minutes.

Cabarrus’ mean travel time was 27.5 minutes; Davidson, 24.3 minutes; Davie, 27.1 minutes; Iredell, 25.2 minutes; and Stanly, 25.2 minutes.

Most Rowan County workers had three or more cars available for their use, at 40.3 percent.