{"schema_version": 1, "id": "bloomington-in-msa/information-technology/2026-10", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 144, "label": "Bloomington, IN MSA", "slug": "bloomington-in-msa"}, "focus_area": {"key": "information_technology", "slug": "information-technology", "label": "Information Technology"}, "period": "2026-10", "public_after": "2026-10-01", "frozen_at": "2026-11-03T02:59:21.124565+00:00", "headline": "Bloomington IT pay splits as metro wages fall, specialists rise.", "headline_summary": "Bloomington posted the steepest metro employment decline in the U.S. at -5.9% and 2025 wages fell 6.2%, yet Network Engineer pay rose to $82,626 and Cybersecurity Analyst pay climbed to $91,478 locally.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Bloomington employment change (YoY)", "value": "-5.9%", "context": "Largest metro decline nationally, BLS Oct. 28 release"}, {"label": "Bloomington area wage growth (2025)", "value": "-6.2%", "context": "Driven by university-sector reductions, IBRC"}, {"label": "Monroe County / Bloomington MSA unemployment", "value": "3.7%", "context": "Matches Indiana state rate; projected to reach 4.0% in 2026"}, {"label": "Indiana open job postings", "value": "106,000+", "context": "As of Sept. 30, 2026, despite shrinking labor force"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Bloomington's downturn is creating two different labor markets at once.", "body": "Systems Administrator advertised pay dropped significantly to $62,844 while Network Engineer pay rose significantly to $82,626 in the same metro. Treat infrastructure and network roles as separate compensation conversations, each with its own IT pay band."}, {"headline": "University-driven wage declines may not reach specialized IT talent.", "body": "The 6.2% area-wide wage drop in 2025 reflects university-sector reductions, but Cybersecurity Analyst and Network Engineer pay both moved up moderately to significantly this month. Broad economic weakness in Bloomington is coexisting with firmer pay for scarce technical skills."}, {"headline": "Local talent supply looks loose, but only for certain roles.", "body": "Metro employment fell nearly 2% in 2025 against state and national growth, yet IT Project Manager pay climbed to $114,590, within striking distance of the $118,150 national figure. Build-vs-buy decisions for project leadership may favor local hires now that pay gaps with national rates are narrowing."}, {"headline": "Help desk and support pay holding steady signals a stable floor.", "body": "Help Desk/IT Support Specialist pay held flat at $47,261 against a national figure actually declining to $53,129. Bloomington's support-tier compensation may be more resilient than the national trend, worth factoring into any outsourcing comparison for tier-one support functions."}], "local_conditions": "Bloomington's labor market diverges sharply from state and national trends: the metro posted the largest over-the-year employment decline of any U.S. metro at -5.9%, while area wages fell 6.2% in 2025, driven largely by university-sector contraction. Monroe County unemployment held at 3.7% in September, matching the state rate, but IBRC forecasters project local unemployment climbing to 4.0% in 2026 even as Indiana's overall job postings remain elevated at 106,000-plus openings statewide.", "implications": "A metro losing employment and wages while Systems Administrator advertised pay falls to $62,844, well below national's $102,503, signals a local talent pool giving employers more leverage on routine infrastructure and support roles, while Network Engineer and Cybersecurity Analyst pay climbing locally suggests specialized technical talent is pulling away from the broader downturn. This split supports a bifurcated headcount strategy: shore up retention and compensation for scarce specialist roles while using the slack labor market to fill on-prem support and junior positions at favorable rates. Consider reviewing whether current Systems Administrator and Help Desk pay levels reflect actual local supply conditions or lag behind a market that may tighten if university-sector layoffs reverse.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Potential inflection point", "body": "IBRC projects Bloomington unemployment rising to 4.0% in 2026 from the current 3.7%. Watch whether this translates into looser candidate pools for infrastructure and support roles or stays concentrated in non-IT sectors tied to the university system."}, {"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "National tech layoffs have already exceeded 133,000 workers through late October, a pace outstripping all of 2025. Monitor whether released talent from national employers begins appearing in the Bloomington candidate pool, particularly for cloud and AI-adjacent roles the metro currently lacks pricing power to compete for."}, {"category": "Worth watching", "body": "Indiana's statewide labor force shrank even as postings topped 106,000 (job ads, a signal of hiring demand, one ad often covers several openings), pointing to worker scarcity as the driver. If this pattern holds locally, expect continued upward pressure on Network Engineer and Cybersecurity Analyst advertised pay even as broader metro wages decline."}, {"category": "Expected", "body": "AI-related job postings nationally now represent 7.3% of all postings, more than double the prior 2022 peak. Expect this to widen the gap between Bloomington's AI/ML-adjacent compensation and its general IT pay scale, sharpening build-vs-buy tradeoffs for specialized infrastructure work."}], "roles": [{"role": "Data Scientist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 90236.0, "metro_p50": 96486.0, "metro_p75": 112068.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 145881.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Systems Administrator", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 55000.0, "metro_p50": 62843.6, "metro_p75": 75512.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 102503.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Network Engineer", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 78383.75, "metro_p50": 82625.8, "metro_p75": 92600.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 115757.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Software Engineer", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 90767.0, "metro_p50": 96800.0, "metro_p75": 140000.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 154403.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Help Desk/IT Support Specialist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 32760.0, "metro_p50": 47261.4, "metro_p75": 49165.5, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 53129.0, "national_trend_direction": "down", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Cybersecurity Analyst", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 77413.0, "metro_p50": 91478.0, "metro_p75": 101368.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 107327.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "IT Project Manager", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 89657.0, "metro_p50": 114590.0, "metro_p75": 123652.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 118149.8, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}], "industry_snapshot": [], "citations": [], "methodology": "Advertised pay from active employer job postings, not survey data. WageScape's median is calibrated to correct for spurious low-value postings: distribution analysis shows roughly the lowest 10% of raw values are erroneous entries, so the reported median is the 60th percentile of raw advertised pay.", "edition_label": "November 2026", "files": {"html": "bloomington-in-msa/information-technology/2026-10.html", "pdf": "bloomington-in-msa/information-technology/2026-10.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-11-03T08:18:54.353648+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/bloomington-in-msa/information-technology/2026-10.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/bloomington-in-msa/information-technology/2026-10.pdf"}