Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Lawton, OK 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
Headline
National unemployment rate at 4.1%-4.2% as of August/September 2026
Bureau of Labor Statistics — National unemployment rate benchmark
Key Indicators
Lawton MSA unemployment rate at 4.40%, prior month and year-ago comparison
Bureau of Labor Statistics / Oklahoma Employment Security Commission — Most recent available Lawton MSA unemployment data
This Month's Takeaways
Federal government employment in Lawton metro at 3.7 thousand, July 2026
Bureau of Labor Statistics — Metro-level federal employment figure
Local Economic Conditions
Comanche County civilian labor force at 48,806 in August 2026
Oklahoma Employment Security Commission — County-level labor force estimate
Looking Ahead
Oklahoma manufacturing employment forecast to decline 1.4% from 2024-2034
Oklahoma Economic Indicators / Oklahoma Employment Security Commission — State manufacturing employment projection
Oklahoma average WTI crude price $83.90 and rig count of 51 in August 2026
Oklahoma Energy Today — State energy sector activity indicator
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