Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Dothan, AL 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
Alabama unemployment rate of 3.4% vs national 4.1%
Alabama Department of Workforce / BLS — State labor market report, September 2026
National wage growth of 3.0% against 3.4% inflation
Bureau of Labor Statistics — Average hourly earnings and CPI, September 2026
This Month's Takeaways
National health care added 17,000 jobs in September 2026
Bureau of Labor Statistics — National nonfarm payroll sector breakdown, September 2026
Local Economic Conditions
Dothan MSA unemployment rose from 2.3% to 3.9%
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Economy at a Glance — MSA unemployment rate, extracted Sept 9 2026
Houston County average weekly wage of $1,131 in Q1 2026
BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages — County Employment and Wages, March 2026 release
Looking Ahead
Alabama 2026 WARN notices concentrated in manufacturing and logistics
layoffdata.com — Alabama WARN Act notice tracking, 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