Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Brownsville-Harlingen, TX 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
Brownsville-Harlingen unemployment reached 7.3% in August 2026, largest YoY increase nationally
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics / Texas Workforce Commission — Metro unemployment and employment data, September 2026 release
Metro average weekly wages fell to $917 in Q1 2026 from $956 in Q4 2025
Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) / BLS — Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data
This Month's Takeaways
SpaceX relocated headquarters to Starbase, expecting 4,000-6,000 added employees within two years
WFAA / Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño, Jr. — News coverage of Starbase incorporation and SpaceX relocation
Local Economic Conditions
Total nonfarm employment at 159,700, down 800 positions year-over-year
Texas Workforce Commission — Labor Market Review, September 2026
Open Threads in the Data
Cameron County ranked second-lowest in Texas for median annual wages at $36,942
Rio Grande Valley Business Journal / Texas Workforce Commission — County wage ranking report
Looking Ahead
National wage growth slowed to 3.0% annual increase against 3.4% inflation
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