Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Pascagoula, 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
Mississippi labor force participation rate near 54-55%, below 61.8% national rate
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics / Mississippi Dept. of Employment Security — State vs. national labor force participation comparison
Mississippi nonfarm employment reached record 1,199,800 in August 2026
Office of Governor Tate Reeves — State employment milestone announcement
Local Economic Conditions
Jackson County unemployment rate of 3.5% in July 2026
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — County-level unemployment estimate
Manufacturing accounts for 52.4% of Jackson County GDP vs 14.8% statewide
Regional economic data compilation — County vs. state GDP composition by sector
Looking Ahead
National wage growth slowed to 3.0% annually against 3.4% inflation
Bureau of Labor Statistics — National average hourly earnings vs. CPI
Manufacturing led Mississippi WARN filings with 8 of 12 notices in 2026
LayoffData.com / LayoffIQ — State WARN Act notice tracking by sector
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