{"schema_version": 1, "id": "green-bay-wi-msa/finance/2026-08", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 187, "label": "Green Bay, WI MSA", "slug": "green-bay-wi-msa"}, "focus_area": {"key": "finance", "slug": "finance", "label": "Finance"}, "period": "2026-08", "public_after": "2026-08-01", "frozen_at": "2026-10-09T16:25:23.769247+00:00", "headline": "Green Bay Controller pay surges while analyst roles soften.", "headline_summary": "Metro Controller advertised pay climbed to a median $101,603 even as Financial Analyst pay fell to $73,416, a split that suggests Green Bay employers are concentrating scarce compensation budget at the senior end of finance while a 3.20% metro unemployment rate keeps overall hiring tight.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Green Bay MSA unemployment rate", "value": "3.20%", "context": "Most recent metro reading, historically low"}, {"label": "Controller advertised pay (metro)", "value": "$101,603", "context": "Up significantly; national median $112,500 stable"}, {"label": "Financial Analyst advertised pay (metro)", "value": "$73,416", "context": "Down moderately vs. stable national $82,905"}, {"label": "Wisconsin statewide payrolls", "value": "3,042,900 jobs (July 2026)", "context": "Down from 3,051,000 peak in Nov. 2024"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Controller pay is pulling away from the rest of the finance function.", "body": "Metro Controller advertised pay rose significantly to $101,603 while Senior Accountant and FP&A Manager pay held stable, signaling employers are concentrating scarce budget on senior financial leadership roles rather than broadening increases across the department. Budget cycle planning should treat Controller-level compensation as a distinct, faster-moving line item."}, {"headline": "Financial Analyst and Credit Analyst pay softening locally bucks the national trend.", "body": "Metro Financial Analyst pay is down moderately to $73,416 and Credit Analyst down moderately to $59,249, even as national medians for both roles are stable or rising. This divergence may suggest Green Bay employers are finding adequate local supply for mid-level analytical roles even as senior and specialist roles tighten \u2014 worth testing before assuming national wage pressure applies uniformly."}, {"headline": "Tax Specialist and Billing Specialist pay signal where real scarcity lives.", "body": "Both roles posted significant advertised pay increases locally ($65,274 and $47,840 respectively), tracking national gains in the same roles and consistent with 90% of finance leaders nationally reporting difficulty filling skilled positions. These are the roles most likely to blow through planned salary ranges during the next hiring cycle."}, {"headline": "Wisconsin's job losses since January 2025 complicate headcount cost forecasting.", "body": "State employment has declined from a November 2024 peak of 3,051,000 jobs even as August's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate improved to 3.2%, a combination that suggests some of the state's apparent tightness reflects labor force exits rather than genuine demand strength. Controllers building multi-year headcount cost models should stress-test against both a continued-tightness and a labor-force-recovery scenario."}], "local_conditions": "Green Bay's metro unemployment sits at historically tight levels \u2014 3.20% as of the most recent MSA reading \u2014 with roughly 18,500 job postings live in Brown County against a base of 7,700 employers, underscoring that labor supply, not demand, remains the binding constraint on hiring plans. State-level context reinforces the pressure: Wisconsin unemployment fell to 3.2% in August even as the state has quietly shed jobs since January 2025, a divergence that suggests headline tightness may partly reflect workforce exits rather than pure hiring strength.", "implications": "Tight metro labor supply is colliding with Finance-specific hiring urgency \u2014 nationally, 74% of F&A leaders plan permanent headcount increases while 61% report skilled candidates harder to find than a year ago, a dynamic Green Bay's thin candidate pool will likely amplify. With Controller pay up significantly locally ($101,603 median) while Financial Analyst and Credit Analyst advertised pay have moved down, budget cycles may need role-by-role rather than department-wide compensation assumptions. Consider reviewing headcount cost forecasts at the individual-role level rather than applying a blanket wage-inflation assumption across the finance function.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Worth watching", "body": "Brown County's 18,500+ open postings against thin unemployment suggests requisition aging will likely lengthen for finance and accounting roles over the next quarter. Track time-to-fill for Controller and Tax Specialist openings specifically, since these show the sharpest local pay acceleration."}, {"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "National F&A hiring managers report 69% offering salaries above planned range and 82% paying AI-skill premiums for technical accounting and FP&A roles. Watch whether Green Bay employers begin advertising AI or automation skill premiums for close-cycle and forecasting roles, which would signal the trend has reached this metro."}, {"category": "Potential inflection point", "body": "Wisconsin's divergence between falling statewide payrolls and falling unemployment warrants a second data point before drawing conclusions. A stabilization or reversal in Brown County job postings over the next 30-60 days would help clarify whether local finance hiring is entering a genuine slowdown or simply a supply-constrained plateau."}, {"category": "Early indicator", "body": "The April 2026 Green Bay Converting layoff (32 workers) was modest, but any additional WARN filings in manufacturing or converting-adjacent sectors would be worth monitoring given Wisconsin's broader 11,300-job decline in trade over the past year. A cluster of filings could ease pressure on adjacent finance support roles tied to those industries."}], "roles": [{"role": "Controller", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 87500.0, "metro_p50": 101603.0, "metro_p75": 110654.25, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 112500.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Senior Accountant", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 69599.0, "metro_p50": 76381.0, "metro_p75": 76521.0, "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": "metro", "metro_p25": 63708.0, "metro_p50": 73416.0, "metro_p75": 82175.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 82905.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Billing Specialist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 41600.0, "metro_p50": 47840.0, "metro_p75": 51719.75, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 49700.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Tax Specialist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 42102.75, "metro_p50": 65274.0, "metro_p75": 65275.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 66725.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "significant"}, {"role": "Credit Analyst", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 48497.5, "metro_p50": 59249.0, "metro_p75": 64218.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 72000.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "FP&A Manager", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 96608.0, "metro_p50": 113865.0, "metro_p75": 123678.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 127341.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}], "industry_snapshot": [], "citations": [], "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": "September 2026", "files": {"html": "green-bay-wi-msa/finance/2026-08.html", "pdf": "green-bay-wi-msa/finance/2026-08.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-10-09T16:34:05.184183+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/green-bay-wi-msa/finance/2026-08.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/green-bay-wi-msa/finance/2026-08.pdf"}