Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Midland, TX 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
Midland ranked second nationally in metro payroll growth, 3.3% YoY
Bureau of Labor Statistics — Metro area employment statistics, August 2026
Texas added 159,400 jobs over the year, 1.1% growth rate
Texas Workforce Commission — Statewide nonfarm payroll data, September 2026
This Month's Takeaways
Midland was only large Texas county with wage decline, -8.0% YoY
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, Q3 2025
Local Economic Conditions
Midland posted lowest unemployment rate of any Texas MSA at 3.3% in August 2026
City of Midland News Release — Municipal labor market announcement, Sept 21, 2026
Open Threads in the Data
Texas labor force participation at 63.7% vs 62.2% national
Joint Economic Committee / BLS — Labor force participation comparison, September 2026
Looking Ahead
National payrolls added just 29,000 jobs in September with downward revisions
Bureau of Labor Statistics — National Employment Situation report, 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