{"schema_version": 1, "id": "glens-falls-ny-msa/finance/2026-10", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 170, "label": "Glens Falls, NY MSA", "slug": "glens-falls-ny-msa"}, "focus_area": {"key": "finance", "slug": "finance", "label": "Finance"}, "period": "2026-10", "public_after": "2026-10-01", "frozen_at": "2026-11-03T05:22:22.607637+00:00", "headline": "Glens Falls Finance pay climbs even as the metro's job count falls.", "headline_summary": "Controller pay reached a $125,000 metro median against a 1.2% year-over-year drop in MSA nonfarm employment, while Tax Specialist pay fell to $44,895, far below the $69,556 national median.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "MSA employment change", "value": "-1.2%", "context": "Year-over-year through July 2026, 56,000 nonfarm jobs"}, {"label": "Glens Falls unemployment rate", "value": "3.4%", "context": "July 2026, vs 4.1% U.S. rate"}, {"label": "Monthly job losses", "value": "-300", "context": "September 2026, vs 5-yr avg of +20/month"}, {"label": "CFO turnover rate", "value": "18.3%", "context": "2026 projection, highest since pandemic (Crist|Kolder)"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Controller pay is climbing while the local labor pool shrinks.", "body": "Metro Controller advertised pay sits at $125,000, above the $115,420 national median, even as MSA nonfarm employment fell 1.2% year-over-year through July. Scarcity appears to be driving the premium \u2014 a signal to budget retention investment ahead of any Controller-level departure."}, {"headline": "FP&A Manager pay parity with national rates signals a seller's market.", "body": "Metro and national FP&A Manager pay both sit at $130,000 and both trending up moderately, unusual for a contracting small metro. Demand for forward-looking finance talent appears to be holding steady even as broader hiring activity softens, consistent with national reporting that FP&A and transaction-prep roles are where finance hiring is concentrating."}, {"headline": "Tax Specialist pay gap versus national rates may signal local underinvestment.", "body": "Metro Tax Specialist advertised pay fell to $44,895, down significantly and far below the $69,556 national median, which is up significantly nationally. A widening gap this large risks losing tax talent to remote or regional competitors paying closer to national rates."}, {"headline": "Credit Analyst pay decline tracks a cooling regional credit function.", "body": "Metro Credit Analyst pay dropped to $71,122, down significantly, while the national median held flat at $71,397. Falling local demand for this role is consistent with the metro's broader employment contraction and may reflect reduced lending or credit-review activity among regional employers."}], "local_conditions": "Glens Falls MSA nonfarm employment contracted 1.2% year-over-year through July and shed another 300 jobs in September, a pace of decline well outside the metro's five-year average of roughly 20 net new jobs per month. Manufacturing's medical devices niche remains a stabilizing force, but the broader contraction, paired with a 3.4% July unemployment rate and a shrinking civilian labor force, points to a metro where talent supply is tightening even as overall job counts fall \u2014 a combination that complicates both headcount planning and backfill timing for Finance functions.", "implications": "Shrinking nonfarm payrolls alongside a stable-to-low unemployment rate suggest Glens Falls Finance leaders face a thin labor pool \u2014 open requisitions for Controller and FP&A Manager roles will likely take longer to fill even as overall headcount growth stalls regionally. With CFO turnover nationally projected at 18.3% and finance talent shortages reported by 85% of CFOs surveyed nationally, small-metro Finance teams carry elevated single-point-of-failure risk in close and audit cycles when one senior finance hire exits. Consider reviewing succession depth for Controller and FP&A Manager seats now, before a vacancy collides with a quarter-close or audit deadline.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Expected", "body": "BLS has not yet released October MSA-level unemployment data for Glens Falls; watch for the delayed print to confirm whether July's 1.2% year-over-year employment decline deepened into Q3."}, {"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "Saratoga County's 3.2% August unemployment rate, slightly below the MSA's July 3.4%, suggests labor tightness may be uneven across the metro's component counties \u2014 a reason to benchmark pay by county as well as by MSA for roles with county-specific candidate pools."}, {"category": "Worth watching", "body": "National finance-sector hiring has bifurcated toward FP&A, M&A integration and transaction-prep roles while non-revenue functions face freezes at major banks; watch whether that pattern filters down to Glens Falls employers making Controller or FP&A hires this quarter."}, {"category": "Potential inflection point", "body": "New York's statutory minimum wage freeze, triggered by statewide job losses, removes a cost-planning variable for FY2027 budgets, but Governor Hochul's pledged workaround could reintroduce it with little notice."}], "roles": [{"role": "Controller", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 119204.0, "metro_p50": 125000.0, "metro_p75": 127500.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 115420.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Senior Accountant", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 74568.0, "metro_p50": 87056.0, "metro_p75": 89156.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 87731.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Financial Analyst", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 72270.0, "metro_p50": 92221.2, "metro_p75": 101623.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 94646.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Billing Specialist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 44533.0, "metro_p50": 52502.4, "metro_p75": 53148.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 49000.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Tax Specialist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 33748.0, "metro_p50": 44895.0, "metro_p75": 74941.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 69556.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "significant"}, {"role": "Credit Analyst", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 58140.0, "metro_p50": 71121.8, "metro_p75": 81666.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 71397.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "FP&A Manager", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 105763.5, "metro_p50": 130000.0, "metro_p75": 138746.5, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 130000.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}], "industry_snapshot": [], "citations": [{"source_name": "USA Facts / Bureau of Labor Statistics", "source_url": null, "statement": "Glens Falls MSA lost 300 jobs in September 2026"}, {"source_name": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics", "source_url": "https://www.bls.gov", "statement": "MSA nonfarm employment declined 1.2% year-over-year in July 2026"}, {"source_name": "New York State Department of Labor", "source_url": null, "statement": "Saratoga County unemployment rate was 3.2% in August 2026"}, {"source_name": "Crist|Kolder Associates", "source_url": null, "statement": "CFO turnover projected at 18.3% in 2026, highest since pandemic"}, {"source_name": "MAVI", "source_url": null, "statement": "85% of CFOs report finance talent shortages affecting operations"}, {"source_name": "Washington Post", "source_url": null, "statement": "NY minimum wage increase frozen for January 2027 due to employment off-ramp"}], "methodology": "Advertised pay from active employer job postings, not survey data. WageScape's median is calibrated to correct for spurious low-value postings: distribution analysis shows roughly the lowest 10% of raw values are erroneous entries, so the reported median is the 60th percentile of raw advertised pay.", "edition_label": "November 2026", "files": {"html": "glens-falls-ny-msa/finance/2026-10.html", "pdf": "glens-falls-ny-msa/finance/2026-10.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-11-03T08:22:22.392987+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/glens-falls-ny-msa/finance/2026-10.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/glens-falls-ny-msa/finance/2026-10.pdf"}