Metro Job Market Pulse · General Market Conditions · September 2026
General Market Conditions Labor Market Report: Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH MSA — September 2026
Boston job losses concentrate in tech and consulting, not broadly.
Boston Metropolitan Division payrolls fell 1.2% in August — the steepest of any Massachusetts metro — as professional and technical services contracted 5.8% statewide, even as labor force participation held at 65.3%.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- Boston Metro Division job change: -1.2% — Steepest decline among 7 MA metro divisions, August 2026
- MA unemployment rate: 4.3% — vs 4.1% national rate, August 2026
- Boston wage growth: 2.3% — vs 3.1% national pace, 12 months to June 2026
- Labor force participation (MA): 65.3% — vs 61.8% national rate, holding flat since spring
Key takeaways
Boston's job losses are concentrated, not economy-wide.
The Boston Metropolitan Division's 1.2% August decline outpaced every other Massachusetts metro area, driven largely by professional, scientific, and technical services — down 5.8% statewide. Healthcare, education, and construction continued adding jobs over the same period, indicating a bifurcated rather than broad-based slowdown.
Participation holding steady despite payroll contraction is the real story.
Massachusetts labor force participation stayed at 65.3%, well above the 61.8% national rate, even as the state shed 7,100 jobs in August alone. Workers appear to be staying in the market rather than exiting, which may limit how much further unemployment can rise even if payroll softness persists.
Wage growth in Boston is trailing the nation for the first time in years.
Boston-area wages and salaries rose 2.3% over the year through June, below the 3.1% national pace and a reversal of the region's historical wage premium. Combined with 3.4% national inflation, this points to eroding local purchasing power even where employment is stable.
Healthcare's WARN notices complicate the sector's growth narrative.
A single Worcester-area healthcare layoff (Community Healthlink, 639 jobs) was the largest Massachusetts WARN filing this year, even as healthcare remains a statewide job-growth leader. The juxtaposition suggests growth in some healthcare subsectors is coexisting with contraction in others — a distinction worth tracking rather than treating healthcare as uniformly expansionary.
Median advertised pay by role — Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail Sales Associate | $31,611 | $36,311 | $39,343 | Stable | $33,325 |
| Retail Cashier | $31,257 | $35,936 | $37,960 | Stable | $31,200 |
| Warehouse/Fulfillment Associate | $35,110 | $41,111 | $43,680 | Stable | $38,000 |
| CDL Truck Driver | $54,600 | $72,800 | $82,785 | Moderate increase | $78,000 |
| Delivery Driver | $33,930 | $36,489 | $41,853 | Stable | $34,344 |
| Construction Laborer | $39,520 | $47,840 | $50,525 | Moderate increase | $40,560 |
| Electrician | $62,718 | $82,666 | $91,212 | Moderate increase | $71,404 |
| Manufacturing Production Worker/Assembler | $36,920 | $43,680 | $46,800 | Stable | $39,520 |
| Customer Service Representative | $36,078 | $42,716 | $46,800 | Stable | $39,520 |
| Food Service Worker | $33,198 | $37,440 | $40,768 | Moderate decline | $33,756 |
| Certified Nursing Assistant / Home Health Aide | $39,779 | $44,720 | $46,800 | Stable | $41,106 |
| Administrative Assistant/Office Clerk | $39,520 | $50,014 | $56,160 | Stable | $43,680 |
| HVAC Technician | $67,753 | $80,509 | $87,500 | Moderate increase | $70,720 |
| Registered Nurse | $95,503 | $115,610 | $127,400 | Significant increase | $102,581 |
| Software Engineer | $120,561 | $156,473 | $173,047 | Moderate increase | $153,652 |
| Data Engineer | $99,469 | $143,927 | $159,248 | Moderate increase | $139,500 |
| Accountant | $63,223 | $78,476 | $87,037 | Moderate increase | $72,182 |
| Financial Analyst | $78,057 | $100,598 | $108,659 | Stable | $94,782 |
| HR Generalist/Manager | $61,710 | $77,286 | $85,000 | Moderate increase | $75,000 |
| Marketing Specialist | $50,732 | $68,561 | $80,000 | Moderate increase | $62,354 |
| Operations Manager | $70,000 | $93,181 | $125,042 | Stable | $85,216 |
| Elementary/Secondary School Teacher | $44,720 | $64,616 | $72,997 | Significant increase | $56,731 |
| Account Manager | $67,500 | $95,088 | $115,775 | Moderate increase | $92,749 |
| Warehouse Manager * | $57,231 | $108,597 | $113,717 | Stable | $75,000 |
| Business Analyst | $84,300 | $102,636 | $115,090 | Stable | $98,279 |
* State-level figure shown where metro postings were too few.
WageScape's median is calibrated to correct for spurious low-value postings (reported as the 60th percentile of raw advertised pay). Download: CSV · JSON
Industry snapshot
| Sector | Median advertised pay | Pay trend | Postings trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construction | $83,200 | Moderate increase | Significant increase |
| Manufacturing | $115,585 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Retail Trade | $43,617 | Moderate increase | Significant increase |
| Transportation, Warehousing & Utilities | $49,299 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Information | $132,947 | Significant increase | Moderate decline |
| Financial Activities | $104,358 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Professional & Business Services | $91,425 | Moderate increase | Significant increase |
| Education & Health Services | $69,368 | Moderate increase | Significant increase |
| Leisure & Hospitality | $40,560 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Government | $72,660 | Significant increase | Moderate increase |
Local market conditions
Boston metro payrolls contracted 1.2% in August, the steepest decline among all seven Massachusetts metropolitan divisions, as professional, scientific, and technical services — the sector that anchors the region's tech, consulting, and research economy — continued a 5.8% statewide annual decline. Massachusetts unemployment held at 4.3%, still above the 4.1% national rate, while labor force participation stayed flat at 65.3%, suggesting workers are not leaving the market even as job counts shrink, a pattern consistent with a slowdown concentrated in specific sectors rather than a broad-based downturn.
What it means
Divergence between stable participation and falling payrolls points to a labor market absorbing sector-specific contraction — concentrated in professional/technical services and the Boston Metropolitan Division specifically — without yet triggering the participation withdrawal that would signal a deeper downturn. For commerce leaders assessing the climate for local expansion, healthcare and construction remain the metro's structural growth engines, while trade, information, financial activities, and leisure/hospitality collectively lost roughly 17,000 positions statewide this year. Current conditions suggest monitoring whether professional/technical services stabilizes before reading the broader Boston economy as either cooling or merely rotating.
Looking ahead
Expected data release: September metro-level employment figures for Boston-Cambridge-Newton publish October 16 via the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. This will confirm whether August's 1.2% Boston Metropolitan Division decline was a one-month dip or the start of a trend.
Emerging pressure point: Professional, scientific, and technical services — central to Boston's economic identity — has contracted 5.8% statewide this year. Continued weakness here would signal a structural competitiveness question for the metro's innovation economy, not simply a cyclical hiring pause.
Worth watching: Net international migration to Boston metro has fallen roughly 50%, a structural headwind to labor force growth independent of current hiring conditions. Combined with an aging workforce, this raises longer-term questions about labor supply available to support any rebound in business activity.
Potential inflection point: National wage growth has slipped to 3.0% — its lowest since May 2021 — while inflation runs at 3.4%, and Boston's 2.3% regional wage pace already trails the nation. Widening wage-inflation gaps locally would weigh further on consumer purchasing power across the metro's retail and service sectors.
Methodology
Advertised pay from active employer job postings, not survey data. WageScape's median is calibrated to correct for spurious low-value postings: distribution analysis shows roughly the lowest 10% of raw values are erroneous entries, so the reported median is the 60th percentile of raw advertised pay. WageScape observes 98% of U.S. job openings daily.
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