Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Hagerstown-Martinsburg, MD-WV 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
Maryland average weekly wage was $1,301 in August 2026, up 4.2% year-over-year
USA Facts / Bureau of Labor Statistics — State average weekly wage data
This Month's Takeaways
Professional, scientific, technical services jobs down 11,500 since January 2025
Maryland Department of Labor — State industry-sector employment trend
Local Economic Conditions
Hagerstown-Martinsburg MSA unemployment rate was 4.0% in June 2026
Bureau of Labor Statistics — MSA-level unemployment data, most recent available
Washington County, MD recorded 4.8% unemployment in March 2026
Bureau of Labor Statistics — County-level unemployment data
Open Threads in the Data
Maryland labor force participation rate fell to 63.7%, a 10-year low
Bureau of Labor Statistics / Maryland Department of Labor — State labor force participation trend
Looking Ahead
96 WARN Act notices affected 6,538 workers statewide in 2026, down 48% YoY
Maryland Department of Labor WARN Notices — State WARN Act filing 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