{"schema_version": 1, "id": "la-nonmetropolitan-area/information-technology/2026-10", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 226, "label": "LA NONMETROPOLITAN AREA", "slug": "la-nonmetropolitan-area"}, "focus_area": {"key": "information_technology", "slug": "information-technology", "label": "Information Technology"}, "period": "2026-10", "public_after": "2026-10-01", "frozen_at": "2026-11-03T03:16:31.635491+00:00", "headline": "Nonmetro Louisiana's IT pay gap widens as trades wages surge.", "headline_summary": "IT Technician pay averages $41,044 statewide while industrial wages climbed 5.5% year-over-year and Cybersecurity Analyst pay rose to $106,942, sharpening retention risk in support-tier IT roles.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Louisiana unemployment rate", "value": "4.0%", "context": "Down from 4.2% in August 2026"}, {"label": "IT Technician vs. general IT pay gap", "value": "56%", "context": "$41,044 vs. $93,813 average, ZipRecruiter"}, {"label": "Statewide quits vs. layoffs", "value": "43,000 vs. 22,000", "context": "October 2025 Louisiana data, signals active churn"}, {"label": "Average weekly wage growth", "value": "5.5%", "context": "Year-over-year, August 2026, BLS via USAFacts"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Support-tier IT pay looks exposed to industrial wage competition.", "body": "Statewide IT Technician pay averages $41,044 while Louisiana's industrial megaprojects drive weekly wages up 5.5% year-over-year; nonmetro employers risk losing entry-level technical staff to adjacent sectors offering faster pay growth. This widens the case for outsourcing routine support as an alternative to competing on wage alone."}, {"headline": "Network Engineer pay is softening against a national climb.", "body": "Metro Network Engineer pay sits at $100,000 and trending down while the national median rose to $115,757, a gap that may reflect thinner local demand for standalone network infrastructure roles as organizations consolidate into cloud-managed services. Widening gaps like this are worth tracking when deciding whether to backfill network roles locally or shift them into managed-service contracts."}, {"headline": "Cybersecurity and Data Scientist pay keep climbing despite flat IT demand overall.", "body": "Cybersecurity Analyst pay rose to $106,942 locally and Data Scientist pay to $153,654, both outpacing stable or declining roles like Systems Administrator and Help Desk. Sustained increases in these two roles amid broader softness suggest security and analytics remain protected hiring priorities even where headcount elsewhere tightens."}, {"headline": "Quit rates signal churn risk that outpaces job growth.", "body": "Louisiana recorded 43,000 quits against 22,000 layoffs even as net job growth stayed modest, consistent with workers trading employers for new positions. For IT leaders, this points toward retention risk concentrated in roles where pay hasn't kept pace with statewide wage momentum, particularly support and infrastructure tiers."}], "local_conditions": "Louisiana's rural parishes show a widening split this month: Southwest Louisiana's LNG and industrial megaprojects are pulling skilled trades labor so hard that certified welders face 40+ day time-to-fill, while statewide IT support roles average just $41,044 against $93,813 for general IT positions, a 56% gap that leaves nonmetro employers exposed on technical bench strength. Statewide unemployment fell to 4.0% in September on construction-driven growth, but information-sector employment is declining even as 43,000 quits against 22,000 layoffs point to active churn among IT staff with options.", "implications": "Wage compression in IT support roles against booming industrial-sector pay creates a retention risk for nonmetro IT leaders: technicians and help desk staff can plausibly move toward higher-paying trades or megaproject-adjacent work, while architecture and platform leads stay insulated by their $93,813+ positioning. With 95% of local IT support roles requiring in-person work, geographic arbitrage through remote hiring is unavailable to offset the gap, making outsourcing or managed-services arrangements for commodity support functions an attractive option alongside building deeper internal bench. Consider reviewing whether current support-tier compensation reflects competition from Louisiana's broader labor tightness and IT-specific benchmarks alike.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "Southwest Louisiana's LNG and industrial buildout continues drawing skilled trades labor; watch whether this competition extends into IT infrastructure and facilities-adjacent technical roles that support industrial sites."}, {"category": "Worth watching", "body": "Statewide information-sector employment is declining even as overall payrolls grow; a continued pullback could loosen the candidate pool for mid-tier IT roles that have been difficult to fill in nonmetro parishes."}, {"category": "Early indicator", "body": "National tech layoffs have already exceeded 133,000 through October, well above full-year 2025 totals; monitor whether displaced talent from larger metros begins surfacing in nonmetro Louisiana applicant pools given remote-flexibility tradeoffs."}, {"category": "Potential inflection point", "body": "Network Engineer pay is trending down locally while national pay climbs, a divergence that may firm up into a clearer signal about whether nonmetro organizations are shifting network management to managed-service providers."}], "roles": [{"role": "Data Scientist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 122313.0, "metro_p50": 153654.0, "metro_p75": 164415.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 145881.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Systems Administrator", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 76916.0, "metro_p50": 96874.0, "metro_p75": 106226.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 102503.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Network Engineer", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 54081.0, "metro_p50": 100000.0, "metro_p75": 126980.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 115757.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Software Engineer", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 119800.0, "metro_p50": 153890.4, "metro_p75": 171732.5, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 154403.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Help Desk/IT Support Specialist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 43477.0, "metro_p50": 53065.0, "metro_p75": 60123.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 53129.0, "national_trend_direction": "down", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Cybersecurity Analyst", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 88028.5, "metro_p50": 106942.0, "metro_p75": 125886.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 107327.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "IT Project Manager", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 79455.0, "metro_p50": 114290.0, "metro_p75": 125030.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 118149.8, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}], "industry_snapshot": [], "citations": [{"source_name": "Louisiana Workforce Commission / regional industry reporting", "source_url": null, "statement": "Southwest Louisiana welders face 40+ day average time-to-fill"}, {"source_name": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics", "source_url": "https://www.bls.gov", "statement": "Louisiana unemployment rate fell to 4.0% in September 2026"}, {"source_name": "ZipRecruiter", "source_url": null, "statement": "IT Technician salary averages $41,044 vs. $93,813 general IT roles"}, {"source_name": "Louisiana Workforce Commission", "source_url": null, "statement": "Louisiana recorded 43,000 quits vs. 22,000 layoffs"}, {"source_name": "Bureau of Labor Statistics via USAFacts", "source_url": "https://usafacts.org", "statement": "Average weekly wages up 5.5% year-over-year as of August 2026"}, {"source_name": "Layoffs tracking aggregator cited in national IT research", "source_url": null, "statement": "Tech sector layoffs exceeded 133,000 through October 2026"}], "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": "la-nonmetropolitan-area/information-technology/2026-10.html", "pdf": "la-nonmetropolitan-area/information-technology/2026-10.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-11-03T08:24:32.022937+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/la-nonmetropolitan-area/information-technology/2026-10.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/la-nonmetropolitan-area/information-technology/2026-10.pdf"}