Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Memphis, TN-AR-MS 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
Shelby County unemployment at 5% in July 2026
USA Facts — County-level unemployment data
Tennessee unemployment steady at 3.4% in August 2026
Bureau of Labor Statistics — State labor market data release
This Month's Takeaways
Shelby County average weekly wage was $1,469 in Q4 2025
Bureau of Labor Statistics — Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages county data
Local Economic Conditions
Memphis MSA averaged 767 job losses per month in 2026, 4th-worst since 2020
USA Facts — Metro employment trend data cited in pre-researched metro notes
FedEx $200M Memphis airport superhub modernization completing late 2026
KI Talent — Infrastructure project and logistics labor gap reporting
Looking Ahead
National wage growth at 3.0% vs 3.4% inflation, weakest since May 2021
Bureau of Labor Statistics — National wage and CPI comparison for September 2026
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