Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Iowa City, 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 City grew fastest among Iowa metros at 0.9% annual employment rate
Common Sense Institute — Iowa metro employment growth comparison, June 2026
This Month's Takeaways
Iowa statewide unemployment held at 3.2% for fourth straight month in August 2026
Iowa Workforce Development — Iowa monthly labor force statistics release
Local Economic Conditions
Iowa City MSA unemployment rate at 2.7% in June 2026 (preliminary)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Iowa City MSA
Iowa City MSA average hourly wage of $31.45 vs national $33.54
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025
Looking Ahead
National wage growth slowed to 3.0% while inflation ran at 3.4% in September 2026
Bureau of Labor Statistics — Employment Situation report, September 2026
Iowa's $2.1 billion UI trust balance enabling lowest 2027 employer tax rates
Iowa Workforce Development — Unemployment insurance trust fund status report
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