La Crosse holds steady at 3.0% while Wisconsin's job count shrinks.
3.0%
Metro unemployment rate
Down from 3.1% in July 2026
-8,100 jobs
Wisconsin statewide job change
Since Nov 2024 peak, through July 2026
3.0% vs 3.4%
National wage-vs-inflation gap
Sept 2026 wage growth trails CPI inflation
2.9%
La Crosse County unemployment
Down from 3.1% in July; tighter than metro
This Month's Takeaways
01
Healthcare keeps La Crosse's labor market tighter than the state average.
Metro unemployment at 3.0 percent beats Wisconsin's broader job contraction, with Registered Nurse pay up significantly to $93,600 locally. Gundersen and Mayo Clinic's continued presence appears to be insulating the metro from the statewide job losses concentrated in trade, transportation, and manufacturing.
02
Skilled trades pay is diverging from office and administrative work.
Construction Laborer pay rose significantly to $48,193 while Administrative Assistant and Business Analyst advertised pay both declined, down moderately and significantly respectively. Pattern mirrors the national split between hands-on sectors outpacing white-collar activity, suggesting local business investment may be concentrating in physical infrastructure over office-based expansion.
03
Wage gains are no longer reliably outrunning inflation.
Wisconsin wage growth is forecast at 3.7 to 4.2 percent for 2026 against core inflation near 3.9 percent, echoing the national pattern where wage growth fell to 3.0 percent against 3.4 percent inflation. Thin real-wage margins suggest constrained local consumer purchasing power even where nominal advertised pay looks healthy.
04
Falling accountant and business-analyst pay may reflect quieter back-office activity.
Accountant pay dropped significantly to $62,802 and Business Analyst fell significantly to $83,170, both moving opposite their national counterparts, which rose. Divergence from national trends is consistent with reduced professional-services and administrative expansion locally, even as healthcare and trades remain active.
Local Economic Conditions
La Crosse-Onalaska's metro unemployment rate held near a cyclical low at 3.0 percent in August, down from 3.1 percent in July, even as Wisconsin shed 8,100 jobs statewide since late 2024 and national payroll growth slowed to 29,000 in September. Healthcare remains the metro's structural anchor — Gundersen Health System and Mayo Clinic La Crosse activity continues to support wage pressure in clinical and administrative roles, while advertised pay for roles like Registered Nurse (up significantly to $93,600) and Construction Laborer (up significantly to $48,193) diverges sharply from softening categories like Accountant and Business Analyst, both down significantly locally even as national pay for those roles rises.
Open Threads in the Data
Metro-level tightness coexists with a statewide slowdown and a national wage-inflation gap — local unemployment near 2.9-3.0 percent signals a labor pool still thin relative to demand, even as Wisconsin's broader job count contracts, a divergence that complicates any single read on whether the regional economy is expanding or consolidating. Commerce leaders weighing local investment or expansion should treat the healthcare-driven wage strength as durable while reading weakness in administrative, accounting, and retail-adjacent categories as consistent with the statewide pattern of trade and office-support contraction. Current conditions suggest monitoring whether sector divergence — strength in healthcare and skilled trades against softness in professional/administrative roles — widens further before drawing conclusions about the metro's overall direction.
Advertised Pay Indicators · WageScape Benchmark 25 Jobs
Job postings data for the La Crosse, WI-MN MSA metro — median advertised pay, its recent trend, and the number of active postings behind each figure. Jobs are grouped for readability and are not the same as the 10 sector classifications on the next page. For additional job detail contact WageScape.
Retail Trade
| Retail Sales Associate |
$32,728 |
↓ Moderate decline |
510 |
| Retail Cashier |
$30,160 |
↑ Moderate increase |
223 |
Transportation & Warehousing
| Warehouse/Fulfillment Associate |
$39,063 |
↓ Moderate decline |
315 |
| CDL Truck Driver |
$80,600 |
→ Stable |
1,397 |
| Delivery Driver |
$35,220 |
↓ Moderate decline |
714 |
| Warehouse Manager |
— |
Limited local postings |
— |
Construction
| Construction Laborer |
$48,193 |
↑ Significant increase |
71 |
Construction/Skilled Trades
| Electrician |
$76,026 |
↓ Significant decline |
40 |
| HVAC Technician |
$62,400 |
↓ Moderate decline |
19 |
Manufacturing
| Manufacturing Production Worker/Assembler |
$42,640 |
→ Stable |
216 |
Cross-Sector
| Customer Service Representative |
$37,996 |
↓ Moderate decline |
117 |
| Operations Manager |
$82,250 |
↑ Moderate increase |
63 |
Leisure & Hospitality
| Food Service Worker |
$34,320 |
→ Stable |
22 |
Healthcare
| Certified Nursing Assistant / Home Health Aide |
$43,160 |
→ Stable |
731 |
| Registered Nurse |
$93,600 |
↑ Significant increase |
778 |
Admin/Office Support
| Administrative Assistant/Office Clerk |
$40,350 |
↓ Moderate decline |
141 |
Information/Technology
| Software Engineer |
$154,233 |
↑ Significant increase |
73 |
| Data Engineer |
$107,042 |
↑ Moderate increase |
17 |
Professional & Business Services
| Accountant |
$62,802 |
↓ Significant decline |
78 |
| HR Generalist/Manager |
$62,058 |
↑ Moderate increase |
27 |
| Marketing Specialist |
$57,160 |
→ Stable |
699 |
| Business Analyst |
$83,170 |
↓ Significant decline |
13 |
Finance & Insurance
| Financial Analyst |
$80,032 |
↑ Moderate increase |
30 |
Government/Education
| Elementary/Secondary School Teacher |
$41,028 |
↓ Moderate decline |
351 |
Cross-Sector Sales
| Account Manager |
$62,677 |
→ Stable |
68 |
Industry Snapshot · La Crosse, WI-MN MSA
Advertised pay and job-posting trends across the whole metro economy, rolled up by employer industry — not just the bellwether roles above.
| Sector |
Median Pay Change |
Job Postings Change |
| Construction |
↓ −7.3% |
↑ +111.1% |
| Manufacturing |
↓ −6.7% |
↑ +178.8% |
| Retail Trade |
↑ +21.5% |
↑ +114.6% |
| Transportation, Warehousing & Utilities |
↓ −5.1% |
↑ +196.7% |
| Information |
↑ +7.6% |
↓ −5.6% |
| Financial Activities |
→ +2.4% |
↑ +70.8% |
| Professional & Business Services |
→ −0.7% |
↑ +165.2% |
| Education & Health Services |
↑ +20.1% |
↑ +89.0% |
| Leisure & Hospitality |
→ +2.6% |
↑ +56.2% |
| Government |
↑ +81.0% |
↑ +457.9% |
Looking Ahead · Next 30–60 Days
Worth watching
Wisconsin's statewide job count has declined since January 2025 even as La Crosse-area unemployment stays low; watch whether county-level data over the next two reporting cycles shows the metro beginning to track the state's broader contraction or continuing to outperform it.
Emerging pressure point
Black unemployment statewide stood at 7.2 percent in Q1 2026, nearly three times the white rate of 2.3 percent, alongside a statewide labor force participation decline to 64.5 percent from 65.4 percent a year ago. Local economic development conversations may increasingly need to address participation gaps, not just headline unemployment.
Potential inflection point
National WARN filings remain elevated with Amazon, Meta, Oracle and Tyson Foods among firms filing notices, while Wisconsin's 56 statewide filings in 2026 are down 7 percent year over year. Any uptick in regional manufacturing or trade-sector notices would be the clearest early signal of the state's slowdown reaching the La Crosse metro directly.
Early indicator
National job growth slowed sharply to 29,000 in September with downward revisions of 60,000 to prior months; a comparable deceleration in Wisconsin's October DWD release would be the first hard confirmation that national cooling is reaching the state's healthcare-anchored metros.
Sources & Methodology
Pay and hiring data provided by WageScape. See every source cited in this report, with links →
Advertised pay reflects the pay ranges employers publish in active job postings in this metro, not survey or payroll data. Pay trends compare the current period with the prior period for the same metro and role. Sector figures group postings by the employer's industry classification; sectors with limited classified postings are marked as such rather than estimated. This briefing is independent of, and complements, official statistics from the BLS and state labor market information offices.
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