Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Cape Girardeau-Jackson, MO-IL 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
Missouri unemployment at 3.2%, lowest since January 2000
Missouri Department of Labor — State labor market report, September 2026
Missouri job postings down 11.7% year-over-year
Indeed Hiring Lab / Missouri labor market research — State job postings comparison, July 2026 vs 2025
Cape Girardeau County average weekly wage $1,037, Q1 2026
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — County Employment and Wages release
This Month's Takeaways
National wage growth 3.0% vs inflation 3.4%, weakest since May 2021
Bureau of Labor Statistics — National average hourly earnings and CPI data, September 2026
Local Economic Conditions
Cape Girardeau MSA unemployment at 3.2%, national comparison
Springfield Business Journal / Bureau of Labor Statistics — Metro unemployment reading citing BLS data
Looking Ahead
National WARN notices affecting 313,234 workers across 44 states as of Sept 26
LayoffAlert.org — WARN Act notice tracking, September 2026
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