Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Wausau, WI 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
Wisconsin wage growth forecast at 4.2% for 2026 against core CPI of 3.9%
State of Working Wisconsin report — September 2026 wage-vs-inflation analysis
This Month's Takeaways
Wisconsin manufacturing employment declining 0.2%, Trade/Transportation/Utilities contracting ~1%
State of Working Wisconsin / Wisconsin DWD — Sector-level Wisconsin employment trends, September 2026
Local Economic Conditions
Marathon County lost 1,116 jobs between Q2 2025 and Q2 2026
Marathon County economic data / QCEW proxy — County employment trend figures cited in pre-researched metro notes
Marathon County unemployment rate near 2.7% as of December 2025
Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development — County-level unemployment data
Open Threads in the Data
Marathon County Board adopted reduced 3.4% shared-revenue growth estimate, ordered wage/benefits market study
Marathon County Board / CitizenPortal.ai — July 22, 2026 county budget assumptions reporting
Looking Ahead
Wisconsin labor force participation fell to 64.5% from 65.4% year-ago
Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development — State labor force participation trend
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