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Labor Market Pulse
Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA Metro Edition
Focus: IT
Scranton engineering pay slides as national rates climb.
4.7%
Metro unemployment rate
vs 4.1% Pennsylvania statewide (July 2026)
$70,112 metro vs $114,400 national
Network Engineer pay gap
Local rate down significantly; national up moderate
5.0%
Luzerne County unemployment
Above metro (4.7%) and state (4.1%) rates
1,899 workers
PA WARN activity, trailing 90 days
17 notices, concentrated in logistics/manufacturing
This Month's Takeaways
Local Network Engineer pay is falling as national demand rises.
Metro median sits at $70,112, down significantly, while national median climbed to $114,400 — a gap wide enough to suggest local postings aren't competing for the same candidate pool. Organizations retaining in-house network engineering may be quietly losing talent to remote roles paying national rates.
Help Desk pay is spiking locally while the national rate stands still.
Metro median rose sharply to $52,678 against a flat national figure of $53,644, nearly closing a gap that typically favors national employers. This looks less like generosity and more like scarcity — a tight local labor supply for entry-tier IT support, consistent with the region's broader dependence on call-center and distribution hiring.
Software Engineer compensation is softening locally against a stable national market.
Metro median fell significantly to $114,325 while the national figure held steady at $153,652, widening an already substantial gap. Build-vs-buy decisions for software work may increasingly favor remote or outsourced delivery over local permanent hires at current advertised rates.
Data Scientist pay is rising fastest locally among all tracked roles.
Metro median climbed to $120,551, described as a significant increase, narrowing the distance to the national median of $148,250. This tracks national signals of outsized AI/data talent demand (Motion Recruitment reports mid-level AI engineers up 9.2% YoY) and may indicate the metro is finally pricing in analytics and AI-adjacent skill scarcity.
Local Labor Conditions
Scranton–Wilkes-Barre's metro unemployment rate held near 4.7% in July, slightly above the state's 4.1% and reflecting the region's continued dependence on distribution, call-center, and healthcare employment rather than tech-sector hiring. Advertised pay for core IT infrastructure roles is diverging sharply from national trends — Network Engineer and Software Engineer postings fell significantly locally even as national demand for the same roles rose, suggesting employers here are either under-leveling these roles or shifting hiring toward contract and remote-first models rather than competing head-to-head for resident talent.
Leadership & Talent Implications
Divergence between local and national pay for engineering-heavy roles signals that Moosic-area IT functions may be structurally disadvantaged in attracting senior infrastructure and software talent locally, pushing more of that work toward remote hires or outsourced delivery rather than in-metro headcount. Meanwhile, Help Desk/IT Support advertised pay rose sharply even as national support pay stayed flat — a sign that commodity support roles are getting harder, not easier, to fill locally despite the metro's reliance on call-center and distribution employment. Consider reviewing whether infrastructure and software engineering roles should be benchmarked against regional or national remote-labor pools rather than metro medians, given the risk that Scranton-area postings are underpriced relative to what comparable talent commands elsewhere.
