Labor Market Pulse · Finance · October 2026
Finance Labor Market Report: Glens Falls, NY MSA — October 2026
Glens Falls Finance pay climbs even as the metro's job count falls.
Controller pay reached a $125,000 metro median against a 1.2% year-over-year drop in MSA nonfarm employment, while Tax Specialist pay fell to $44,895, far below the $69,556 national median.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of October 2026.
Key indicators
- MSA employment change: -1.2% — Year-over-year through July 2026, 56,000 nonfarm jobs
- Glens Falls unemployment rate: 3.4% — July 2026, vs 4.1% U.S. rate
- Monthly job losses: -300 — September 2026, vs 5-yr avg of +20/month
- CFO turnover rate: 18.3% — 2026 projection, highest since pandemic (Crist|Kolder)
Key takeaways
Controller pay is climbing while the local labor pool shrinks.
Metro Controller advertised pay sits at $125,000, above the $115,420 national median, even as MSA nonfarm employment fell 1.2% year-over-year through July. Scarcity appears to be driving the premium — a signal to budget retention investment ahead of any Controller-level departure.
FP&A Manager pay parity with national rates signals a seller's market.
Metro and national FP&A Manager pay both sit at $130,000 and both trending up moderately, unusual for a contracting small metro. Demand for forward-looking finance talent appears to be holding steady even as broader hiring activity softens, consistent with national reporting that FP&A and transaction-prep roles are where finance hiring is concentrating.
Tax Specialist pay gap versus national rates may signal local underinvestment.
Metro Tax Specialist advertised pay fell to $44,895, down significantly and far below the $69,556 national median, which is up significantly nationally. A widening gap this large risks losing tax talent to remote or regional competitors paying closer to national rates.
Credit Analyst pay decline tracks a cooling regional credit function.
Metro Credit Analyst pay dropped to $71,122, down significantly, while the national median held flat at $71,397. Falling local demand for this role is consistent with the metro's broader employment contraction and may reflect reduced lending or credit-review activity among regional employers.
Median advertised pay by role — Glens Falls, NY MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Controller | $119,204 | $125,000 | $127,500 | Significant increase | $115,420 |
| Senior Accountant * | $74,568 | $87,056 | $89,156 | Stable | $87,731 |
| Financial Analyst * | $72,270 | $92,221 | $101,623 | Stable | $94,646 |
| Billing Specialist | $44,533 | $52,502 | $53,148 | Moderate increase | $49,000 |
| Tax Specialist | $33,748 | $44,895 | $74,941 | Moderate decline | $69,556 |
| Credit Analyst * | $58,140 | $71,122 | $81,666 | Significant decline | $71,397 |
| FP&A Manager * | $105,764 | $130,000 | $138,747 | Moderate increase | $130,000 |
* 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
Glens Falls MSA nonfarm employment contracted 1.2% year-over-year through July and shed another 300 jobs in September, a pace of decline well outside the metro's five-year average of roughly 20 net new jobs per month. Manufacturing's medical devices niche remains a stabilizing force, but the broader contraction, paired with a 3.4% July unemployment rate and a shrinking civilian labor force, points to a metro where talent supply is tightening even as overall job counts fall — a combination that complicates both headcount planning and backfill timing for Finance functions.
What it means
Shrinking nonfarm payrolls alongside a stable-to-low unemployment rate suggest Glens Falls Finance leaders face a thin labor pool — open requisitions for Controller and FP&A Manager roles will likely take longer to fill even as overall headcount growth stalls regionally. With CFO turnover nationally projected at 18.3% and finance talent shortages reported by 85% of CFOs surveyed nationally, small-metro Finance teams carry elevated single-point-of-failure risk in close and audit cycles when one senior finance hire exits. Consider reviewing succession depth for Controller and FP&A Manager seats now, before a vacancy collides with a quarter-close or audit deadline.
Looking ahead
Expected: BLS has not yet released October MSA-level unemployment data for Glens Falls; watch for the delayed print to confirm whether July's 1.2% year-over-year employment decline deepened into Q3.
Emerging pressure point: Saratoga County's 3.2% August unemployment rate, slightly below the MSA's July 3.4%, suggests labor tightness may be uneven across the metro's component counties — a reason to benchmark pay by county as well as by MSA for roles with county-specific candidate pools.
Worth watching: National finance-sector hiring has bifurcated toward FP&A, M&A integration and transaction-prep roles while non-revenue functions face freezes at major banks; watch whether that pattern filters down to Glens Falls employers making Controller or FP&A hires this quarter.
Potential inflection point: New York's statutory minimum wage freeze, triggered by statewide job losses, removes a cost-planning variable for FY2027 budgets, but Governor Hochul's pledged workaround could reintroduce it with little notice.
Sources
- USA Facts / Bureau of Labor Statistics — Glens Falls MSA lost 300 jobs in September 2026
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — MSA nonfarm employment declined 1.2% year-over-year in July 2026
- New York State Department of Labor — Saratoga County unemployment rate was 3.2% in August 2026
- Crist|Kolder Associates — CFO turnover projected at 18.3% in 2026, highest since pandemic
- MAVI — 85% of CFOs report finance talent shortages affecting operations
- Washington Post — NY minimum wage increase frozen for January 2027 due to employment off-ramp
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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