Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · MA NONMETROPOLITAN AREA · 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
Professional, scientific and technical services employment fell 5.8%
Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development — Sector-level employment trend, July 2026
This Month's Takeaways
No BLS series exists for a Massachusetts 'nonmetropolitan area' aggregate
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — BLS metropolitan/non-metro area reporting structure
Massachusetts labor force participation at 65.3% vs 61.8% national
Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development / BLS — State and national labor force participation comparison
Education/health services up 1.6% YoY; trade, info, financial activities, leisure lost ~17,000 jobs
Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development — Industry-level employment change data
Local Economic Conditions
Massachusetts unemployment eased to 4.3% in August 2026
Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development — Monthly state labor market release
Looking Ahead
September local-area unemployment data scheduled for October 20, 2026
Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development — Scheduled data release date
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