{"schema_version": 1, "id": "myrtle-beach-conway-north-myrtle-beach-sc-msa/information-technology/2026-10", "product": "Labor Market Pulse", "metro": {"geography_id": 358, "label": "Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach, SC MSA", "slug": "myrtle-beach-conway-north-myrtle-beach-sc-msa"}, "focus_area": {"key": "information_technology", "slug": "information-technology", "label": "Information Technology"}, "period": "2026-10", "public_after": "2026-10-01", "frozen_at": "2026-11-03T03:24:08.707915+00:00", "headline": "Myrtle Beach IT pay splits sharply between support and infrastructure roles.", "headline_summary": "Help Desk/IT Support advertised pay fell to $45,760 even as Systems Administrator pay climbed to $92,689, against a metro backdrop of 3.6% job growth and 4.8% county unemployment.", "key_indicators": [{"label": "Metro employment growth (YoY)", "value": "3.6%", "context": "Among strongest in U.S., per Sept. 2026 BLS data"}, {"label": "Horry County unemployment", "value": "4.8%", "context": "vs 4.0% statewide, 4.2% national (Aug. 2026)"}, {"label": "Horry County avg. weekly wage", "value": "$974", "context": "Lowest among SC's largest counties, Q1 2026"}, {"label": "Help Desk advertised pay shift", "value": "Down, significant", "context": "$45,760 metro vs $53,129 national median"}], "takeaways": [{"headline": "Help desk pay is collapsing while infrastructure roles hold firm.", "body": "Metro Help Desk/IT Support advertised pay (a signal of hiring demand, where one ad often covers several openings) fell significantly to $45,760, well below the $53,129 national median, even as Systems Administrator and Network Engineer pay moved up moderately. Divergence this sharp often signals a shift toward outsourced tier-1 support or AI-assisted ticketing."}, {"headline": "Horry County wages lag the state story the growth numbers tell.", "body": "A $974 average weekly wage, the lowest among South Carolina's major counties, sits uneasily beside 3.6% employment growth and a tourism-heavy job mix. IT compensation benchmarked only against metro medians risks understating what it takes to pull candidates away from Charleston's record tech wages."}, {"headline": "Cybersecurity Analyst pay is flat locally while national demand accelerates.", "body": "Metro Cybersecurity Analyst pay holds stable at $94,298 against a national median of $107,327 that continues to climb moderately. A widening gap like this may suggest local employers are under-pricing a skill set that statewide data center expansion is making increasingly scarce."}, {"headline": "Data center momentum upstate is a retention risk for coastal IT teams.", "body": "Google's $2 billion Dorchester County buildout and Meta's $800 million AI-optimized facility are creating in-state competition for infrastructure and cloud talent that previously had few local alternatives. Myrtle Beach employers may need to weigh remote-work flexibility against losing specialized staff to these projects."}], "local_conditions": "Myrtle Beach's 3.6% year-over-year employment growth through September outpaces nearly every metro in the country, yet Horry County's 4.8% unemployment rate in August sits well above the state's 4.0% and signals a labor market expanding faster than it can absorb workers cleanly. Tourism-driven seasonal hiring, construction tied to coastal development, and a statewide tech infrastructure boom concentrated in Charleston and the Upstate are pulling against each other locally, leaving Horry County's $974 average weekly wage the lowest among South Carolina's largest counties even as growth headlines look strong.", "implications": "Headline job growth masks a wage base that remains below peer metros, which complicates retention for IT leaders competing against Charleston's six-figure tech compensation gravity and the data center buildout drawing talent toward Dorchester and Spartanburg counties. Metro advertised pay for Systems Administrator ($92,689) and Network Engineer ($106,364) is climbing while Help Desk/IT Support Specialist pay has fallen significantly, suggesting employers are consolidating entry-level support functions while protecting infrastructure and network roles that are harder to backfill. Consider reviewing whether support-tier compression reflects deliberate automation or managed-services substitution versus simple difficulty finding candidates at posted rates.", "looking_ahead": [{"category": "Worth watching", "body": "Horry County's 4.8% unemployment rate against the metro's strong headline job growth points to labor force churn alongside expansion. Watch whether September-October data shows the unemployment rate converging toward the statewide 4.0% as seasonal tourism hiring winds down."}, {"category": "Emerging pressure point", "body": "Help Desk/IT Support pay has already fallen significantly; a continued decline alongside rising Systems Administrator pay would confirm a structural shift toward tiered support models. IT leaders should track whether local managed service providers are expanding capacity to absorb this demand."}, {"category": "Potential inflection point", "body": "Valara's nearly $3 billion Spartanburg data center, approved in late August, and Meta's spring 2027 opening timeline will intensify statewide competition for cloud and infrastructure talent well before construction completes. Coastal employers should monitor whether sign-on incentives or relocation activity toward the Upstate begins showing up in candidate pipelines."}, {"category": "Expected", "body": "National tech layoffs already exceeding 133,000 for the year create a larger pool of displaced infrastructure and security talent that secondary markets like Myrtle Beach could draw from. Whether that talent lands locally versus in Charleston or the Triangle will depend heavily on advertised pay competitiveness over the next two months."}], "roles": [{"role": "Data Scientist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 72149.0, "metro_p50": 72150.0, "metro_p75": 72685.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 145881.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Systems Administrator", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 75000.0, "metro_p50": 92689.4, "metro_p75": 102806.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 102503.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Network Engineer", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 79233.0, "metro_p50": 106364.0, "metro_p75": 111619.0, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 115757.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Software Engineer", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 132197.5, "metro_p50": 142168.6, "metro_p75": 149677.75, "metro_trend_direction": "up", "metro_trend_magnitude": "moderate", "national_p50": 154403.0, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}, {"role": "Help Desk/IT Support Specialist", "data_scope": "metro", "metro_p25": 34455.0, "metro_p50": 45760.0, "metro_p75": 47320.0, "metro_trend_direction": "down", "metro_trend_magnitude": "significant", "national_p50": 53129.0, "national_trend_direction": "down", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "Cybersecurity Analyst", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 82681.0, "metro_p50": 94298.0, "metro_p75": 108716.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 107327.0, "national_trend_direction": "up", "national_trend_magnitude": "moderate"}, {"role": "IT Project Manager", "data_scope": "state_rollup", "metro_p25": 88413.5, "metro_p50": 114400.0, "metro_p75": 126574.0, "metro_trend_direction": "stable", "metro_trend_magnitude": "stable", "national_p50": 118149.8, "national_trend_direction": "stable", "national_trend_magnitude": "stable"}], "industry_snapshot": [], "citations": [{"source_name": "Bureau of Labor Statistics / Financial Channel", "source_url": null, "statement": "Myrtle Beach MSA recorded 3.6% year-over-year employment growth"}, {"source_name": "SC Department of Employment & Workforce", "source_url": null, "statement": "Horry County unemployment rate reached 4.8% in August 2026"}, {"source_name": "Bureau of Labor Statistics", "source_url": null, "statement": "Horry County average weekly wage was $974 in Q1 2026"}, {"source_name": "SC Department of Commerce / regional tech reporting", "source_url": null, "statement": "Charleston tech wages average over $130,000"}, {"source_name": "SC Department of Commerce", "source_url": null, "statement": "Google's $2B Dorchester County data center and Meta's $800M SC facility"}, {"source_name": "Layoffs.fyi", "source_url": null, "statement": "133,417 tech employees laid off at 325 companies through Oct. 21, 2026"}], "methodology": "Advertised pay from active employer job postings, not survey data. WageScape's median is calibrated to correct for spurious low-value postings: distribution analysis shows roughly the lowest 10% of raw values are erroneous entries, so the reported median is the 60th percentile of raw advertised pay.", "edition_label": "November 2026", "files": {"html": "myrtle-beach-conway-north-myrtle-beach-sc-msa/information-technology/2026-10.html", "pdf": "myrtle-beach-conway-north-myrtle-beach-sc-msa/information-technology/2026-10.pdf"}, "published_at": "2026-11-03T08:26:46.712966+00:00", "report_html_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/myrtle-beach-conway-north-myrtle-beach-sc-msa/information-technology/2026-10.html", "report_pdf_url": "https://reports.wagescape.com/archive/v1/editions/myrtle-beach-conway-north-myrtle-beach-sc-msa/information-technology/2026-10.pdf"}