Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA 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
Iowa unemployment rate held at 3.2% for fourth consecutive month in August 2026
Bureau of Labor Statistics — State employment situation report
This Month's Takeaways
Iowa trade and transportation sector shed 5,200 jobs annually
Common Sense Institute — Iowa sector employment trend analysis, 2026
Local Economic Conditions
Iowa employed population fell 7,500 year-over-year despite steady unemployment
Iowa Workforce Development — State labor force and employment data, August 2026
Looking Ahead
National nonfarm payrolls added 29,000 jobs in September with 60,000 combined downward revisions
Bureau of Labor Statistics — National employment situation report, September 2026
National wage growth of 3.0% now trails inflation of 3.4%
Bureau of Labor Statistics — Average hourly earnings and CPI data
Iowa's unemployment insurance trust balance reached $2.1 billion, enabling lowest 2027 employer tax rates
Iowa Workforce Development — State UI trust fund and tax rate projections
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