Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Charlottesville, VA 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
Virginia unemployment rate at 3.6% in August 2026, vs national 4.1%
Virginia Employment Commission — Virginia Jobs Day Report, August 2026
National average hourly earnings up 3.0% vs 3.4% inflation
Bureau of Labor Statistics — September 2026 jobs report wage and CPI data
This Month's Takeaways
Virginia civilian labor force declined 68,000 since early 2025
UVA Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service — Virginia labor force and demographic analysis, 2026
Local Economic Conditions
Charlottesville MSA unemployment rate near 2.7% as of April 2026
Bureau of Labor Statistics / Virginia Employment Commission — Most recent available metro-level unemployment figure
Charlottesville-Albemarle tourism generated $1 billion in activity last year
Charlottesville-Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau — Reported via NewsBreak, September 15, 2026
Looking Ahead
Virginia labor force participation rate fell to 62.8% in August 2026
Virginia Employment Commission — August 2026 labor force participation data
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