Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Auburn-Opelika, AL MSA · October 2026
Every advertised-pay, job-posting and industry figure in this briefing comes from WageScape's own database of active job postings. The sources below back the external facts cited in the written analysis.
Sources cited in this report
Key Indicators
Auburn-Opelika MSA unemployment rate of 3.3% for August 2026
Alabama Department of Workforce / BLS — Auburn-Opelika MSA Economy at a Glance, August 2026
National unemployment rate of 4.1% as of August 2026
Bureau of Labor Statistics — National employment situation, August 2026
This Month's Takeaways
Alabama employment declined 30,420 year-over-year despite stable unemployment
Alabama Department of Workforce — September 2026 state labor market newsletter
Local Economic Conditions
Alabama construction and manufacturing sectors hit record weekly wages in July
Alabama Department of Workforce — August 2026 newsletter, record weekly wage data
Open Threads in the Data
National wage growth slowed to 3.0% annual increase, below 3.4% inflation
Bureau of Labor Statistics — September 2026 real earnings and CPI data
Looking Ahead
National payroll employment added only 29,000 jobs in September with downward revisions
Bureau of Labor Statistics — September 2026 employment situation report
How the numbers are calculated
- Advertised pay is the median of the pay ranges employers publish in active job postings in this metro. It is not survey or payroll data.
- Percent changes compare the latest six full months with the six months before that, for the same metro and sector.
- Sectors group postings by the employer's industry (NAICS) classification into ten sectors. Where a metro has too few postings in a sector, the state figure is used instead.
- Role pay trends use the same comparison windows. "Stable" means a change of less than 3%; "moderate" 3–10%; "significant" more than 10%.
Official data for comparison