Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY 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
National wage growth at 3.0% vs 3.4% inflation, real wages declining
Bureau of Labor Statistics — National wage growth and CPI comparison, September 2026
This Month's Takeaways
Factory employment peaked above 54,000 in 2023, declining since mid-2024
Buffalo News — Manufacturing employment trend reporting
Local Economic Conditions
Buffalo-Niagara unemployment fell to 3.4% in September, lowest since May 2023
Buffalo News — Regional labor force and unemployment reporting
Region has added essentially no jobs since May 2025
Buffalo News — Metro employment trend analysis
Looking Ahead
Unemployment hit nine-month high of 4% as workers rejoined labor force
Buffalo News — Labor force re-entry and hiring pace reporting
Manufacturing accounted for 49 WARN notices, 1,442 affected workers in NY
LayoffIQ — New York State WARN notice tracking by industry
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