Labor Market Pulse · Information Technology · September 2026
Information Technology Labor Market Report: Coeur d'Alene, ID MSA — September 2026
Micron's $10B bet collides with Idaho's tech talent shortfall.
Coeur d'Alene Systems Administrator pay fell to $88,500 against a rising $101,168 national median, even as Idaho's tech job postings grew 32% year-over-year against a graduate pipeline covering only 1 in 6 openings.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- Metro unemployment rate: 3.7% — August 2026, preliminary, unchanged month-over-month
- Idaho tech talent gap: 13,707 unfilled roles/year — 16,306 openings vs 2,599 CS grads annually
- Software developer postings: 683 (Aug 2026) — Up 32% YoY from 516 postings
- Systems Administrator pay gap: $88,500 metro vs $101,168 natl — Metro down while national median rising
Key takeaways
Systems Administrator pay is falling behind the national curve.
Metro median advertised pay of $88,500 is down locally while the national median climbed to $101,168 — a widening gap that puts infrastructure teams at risk of losing mid-level admins to remote or relocated national roles, particularly as Micron-driven demand intensifies regional competition.
Help Desk pay is rising faster than almost any other IT role.
Metro Help Desk/IT Support median pay hit $57,091, now above the $53,644 national median, with significant upward movement — consistent with employers competing harder for entry-tier talent as the local CS graduate pipeline fails to meet demand.
IT Project Manager pay has pulled ahead of national levels.
Metro median of $132,490 now exceeds the national median of $117,530, suggesting employers are paying a premium to coordinate infrastructure, security and support workstreams amid the talent-supply gap rather than expanding headcount in any single function.
Micron's $10B investment is a build-vs-buy forcing function, not just a hiring event.
Hundreds of research roles arriving ahead of 2027 will compete directly with private employers for systems and infrastructure engineers in a metro where tech postings already outpace qualified graduates 6-to-1 — outsourcing non-core infrastructure work may become less optional and more structural.
Median advertised pay by role — Coeur d'Alene, ID MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data Scientist * | $85,075 | $145,700 | $167,269 | Moderate decline | $148,250 |
| Systems Administrator | $76,128 | $88,500 | $93,825 | Moderate decline | $101,168 |
| Network Engineer * | $72,923 | $95,402 | $112,755 | Stable | $114,400 |
| Software Engineer | $65,609 | $125,347 | $132,704 | Moderate increase | $153,652 |
| Help Desk/IT Support Specialist | $51,520 | $57,091 | $58,052 | Significant increase | $53,644 |
| Cybersecurity Analyst * | $78,947 | $106,943 | $128,222 | Moderate increase | $106,790 |
| IT Project Manager * | $104,664 | $132,490 | $134,266 | Moderate increase | $117,530 |
* 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
Local market conditions
Coeur d'Alene's unemployment rate held at 3.7% in August, with nonfarm employment dipping 0.3% month-over-month even as the metro posted a 0.3% year-over-year job gain — a labor market that is tight on talent supply but no longer expanding at the pace of the last two years. Statewide, software developer postings jumped 32% year-over-year against a structural shortfall of roughly 13,700 unfilled tech positions annually, and Micron's $10B semiconductor investment is already pulling systems engineering and cloud talent attention toward North Idaho ahead of 2027 groundbreaking.
What it means
Metro-level pay data shows Help Desk/IT Support advertised wages up significantly ($57,091) while Systems Administrator pay has softened ($88,500, down against a rising national median of $101,168) — a divergence suggesting commodity support roles are becoming harder to backfill locally even as infrastructure admin roles lose relative pricing power to cloud and security specializations. With Idaho's CS graduate pipeline covering only about 1 in 6 annual tech openings, and Micron's facility signaling sustained local demand for systems and infrastructure engineers, the build-vs-buy calculus for infrastructure support is shifting toward external staffing while security and cloud architecture talent warrants retention investment. Consider reviewing whether Systems Administrator compensation has drifted far enough below the national median to create a quiet attrition risk before Micron-adjacent hiring accelerates.
Looking ahead
Emerging pressure point: Micron's semiconductor facility groundbreaking approaches in 2027, but recruiting and site-prep hiring for systems and infrastructure engineering roles typically begins well before groundbreaking — watch for early postings competing directly with local employers.
Worth watching: Systems Administrator advertised pay has softened locally while rising nationally; a continued gap beyond one or two quarters would suggest a genuine retention risk rather than noise, particularly for admins supporting on-prem environments.
Early indicator: Idaho's tech job postings grew 32% year-over-year against a graduate pipeline covering only 16% of annual openings — watch whether this widens further, which would push more infrastructure and support functions toward contract or offshore staffing.
Potential inflection point: Kootenai County's unemployment reading (4.3% in July) sits meaningfully above the metro's seasonally adjusted 3.7%, a gap worth monitoring for signs of underlying labor force softness beneath the headline rate.
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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