Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · VA NONMETROPOLITAN AREA · 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
This Month's Takeaways
Virginia average weekly wage rose 4.0-4.1% year over year
Bureau of Labor Statistics / Virginia Works — Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages / Jobs Day data
14 WARN notices affecting 1,936 workers in manufacturing, including Owens & Minor closure
Virginia WARN Act Notices — September 2026 WARN filings tracked at state level
Local Economic Conditions
Virginia's labor force declined by about 68,000 people since early 2025
Virginia Works / Virginia Jobs Day Report — State labor force contraction data cited in September 2026 research notes
Labor force participation rate fell to 62.8%, a 10-year low
Virginia Works — August 2026 Virginia Jobs Day Report
Looking Ahead
UVA Weldon Cooper Center projects Virginia will lose ~18,050 jobs in 2026
UVA Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service — August 2026 state employment forecast
Virginia minimum wage rises to $13.75 on January 1, 2027
Virginia Department of Labor and Industry — State minimum wage schedule
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