Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Lancaster, PA 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
National wage growth slowed to 3.0% against 3.4% inflation
Bureau of Labor Statistics — September 2026 average hourly earnings and CPI comparison
Pennsylvania unemployment at 4.1%, national at 4.2%
PA Department of Labor & Industry / BLS — September 2026 state and national unemployment rates
This Month's Takeaways
Pennsylvania construction and government sectors lost 13,900 jobs since Aug 2025
Keystone Research Center — Statewide sector employment change analysis
Local Economic Conditions
Lancaster County labor force reached record 299,500 with 3.2% unemployment
EDC Lancaster County Data Briefs Q2 2026 — County labor force and unemployment figures, June 2026
Education/health services wages up 7.0% year-over-year in Lancaster metro
BLS Lancaster PA Area Economic Summary — Q1 2026 metro wage growth by sector
Looking Ahead
Pennsylvania recorded 17 WARN notices affecting 1,899 workers in past 90 days
LayoffIQ — September 2026 Pennsylvania WARN notice tracking
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