Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · St. Louis, MO-IL 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
Missouri unemployment rate reached 3.2% in September, lowest since January 2000
Missouri Department of Labor — State labor market statistics, September 2026
This Month's Takeaways
Missouri job postings fell 11.7% year-over-year in July 2026
Missouri Department of Labor / job postings data — State job postings comparison, July 2026 vs 2025
Local Economic Conditions
St. Louis County employment fell 2.2% year-over-year, steepest in Missouri
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — County Employment and Wages Report
St. Louis City wages rose 5.7% in Q4 2025 to $1,611 weekly
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
Defense and data-center construction driving Eighth District manufacturing activity
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — September 2026 Beige Book report
Open Threads in the Data
28,600 manufacturing workers projected to reach retirement by 2027; pipeline gap of 4,200
Regional workforce development research — Manufacturing workforce pipeline analysis
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