Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Wichita, KS 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
Kansas labor force participation rate at 67.4% vs US 61.8%
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City / FRED — State labor force participation comparison
National nonfarm payrolls rose 29,000 in September, unemployment at 4.2%
Bureau of Labor Statistics — National jobs report
This Month's Takeaways
Kansas labor force participation declined 1% year-over-year through June 2026
Kansas Department of Labor — State labor force trend data
Local Economic Conditions
Sedgwick County unemployment rate at 3.1% in August 2026
Bureau of Labor Statistics (LAUS) — County-level unemployment data
Open Threads in the Data
Kansas manufacturing outperforming national trend, led by Garmin, Honeywell, Panasonic
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Beige Book — Tenth District regional economic conditions report
Looking Ahead
Kansas WARN notices at zero in trailing 90 days as of Sept 25, 2026
Kansas WARN Database — State layoff notification tracking
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