About 80.1 percent of people commuted to work in 2007, while 78.7 percent did so in 2008. Of those, about 11.7 percent car pooled in 2008, up from 10.3 percent in 2007.

These findings come from the annual American Community Survey, a look at life in the U.S. built on information from 3 million households. The U.S. Census Bureau this week released social, housing, demographic and economic data collected in 2008.

About 1,200 county commuters are in the county's Rideshare database, according to Dotty Dalphon, community relations manager for TransIT Services of Frederick County.

"We are pleased to see the increase in car/van pooling and decrease in single-occupant vehicles," Dalphon wrote in an e-mail.

With more people car pooling and fewer commuting, the mean travel time to work decreased from 35.1 minutes in 2007 to 32.5 minutes in 2008, the census bureau reported.

When all those commuters got to their jobs, more were working with their hands, the census numbers show. The percentage of construction, extraction, maintenance and repair workers increased from 10.3 percent in 2007 to 11.2 percent in 2008.

Those employed in management and professional occupations dropped slightly, from 41.7 percent in 2007 to 41.5 percent in 2008. Those with sales jobs decreased a percentage point from 26.5 percent in 2007 to 25.5 percent in 2008.

The percentage of people in service jobs held almost steady at 14.7 percent in 2008 and 14.6 percent in 2007.

Workers in the arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation and food services dropped from 8.8 percent in 2007 to 7.2 percent in 2008. The percentage of professional, scientific, management and administrative, and waste management workers also dropped, from 15 percent in 2007 to 14.5 percent in 2008.

Increases were seen in the retail trade, from 11.6 percent in 2007 to 12.3 percent in 2008, and educational, health care and social assistance, from 16.9 percent in 2007 to 19.9 percent in 2008.

The percentage of workers employed by the government increased from 19 percent in 2007 to 19.9 percent in 2008.

Fuel costs were unusually high in 2008, and the economy was taking a turn for the worse, said Jessica Hibbard, communications director at the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce.

"It makes sense that the jobs that are traditionally in more 'secure' industries would have the greatest growth," she wrote in an e-mail.

Frederick County's largest employers are in education, health care and government, and the statistics seem to indicate these fields were more insulated from the lack of job growth in smaller businesses and emerging industries, she wrote.

"As the economy improves, I think we'll see more job growth across the board, including small businesses in a variety of industries."

About 73.2 percent of the county's workers were private wage and salaried employees in 2007, down from about 74.2 percent in 2008. Self-employed workers also decreased from 6.8 percent in 2007 to about 6.5 percent in 2008.

The percentage of people in the county age 16 and older in the labor force increased from 72.4 percent in 2007 to 73.9 percent in 2008, while the percentage of people not in the labor force decreased from 27.6 percent in 2007 to 26.1 percent in 2008.