Metro Job Market Pulse · General Market Conditions · September 2026
General Market Conditions Labor Market Report: La Crosse, WI-MN MSA — September 2026
La Crosse holds steady at 3.0% while Wisconsin's job count shrinks.
La Crosse-Onalaska's 3.0 percent unemployment rate continues to outperform a Wisconsin economy that has shed 8,100 jobs since late 2024, even as Registered Nurse pay climbs to $93,600 locally and Business Analyst pay falls to $83,170, a divergence pointing to a healthcare-anchored metro bucking a statewide slowdown.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- Metro unemployment rate: 3.0% — Down from 3.1% in July 2026
- Wisconsin statewide job change: -8,100 jobs — Since Nov 2024 peak, through July 2026
- National wage-vs-inflation gap: 3.0% vs 3.4% — Sept 2026 wage growth trails CPI inflation
- La Crosse County unemployment: 2.9% — Down from 3.1% in July; tighter than metro
Key takeaways
Healthcare keeps La Crosse's labor market tighter than the state average.
Metro unemployment at 3.0 percent beats Wisconsin's broader job contraction, with Registered Nurse pay up significantly to $93,600 locally. Gundersen and Mayo Clinic's continued presence appears to be insulating the metro from the statewide job losses concentrated in trade, transportation, and manufacturing.
Skilled trades pay is diverging from office and administrative work.
Construction Laborer pay rose significantly to $48,193 while Administrative Assistant and Business Analyst advertised pay both declined, down moderately and significantly respectively. Pattern mirrors the national split between hands-on sectors outpacing white-collar activity, suggesting local business investment may be concentrating in physical infrastructure over office-based expansion.
Wage gains are no longer reliably outrunning inflation.
Wisconsin wage growth is forecast at 3.7 to 4.2 percent for 2026 against core inflation near 3.9 percent, echoing the national pattern where wage growth fell to 3.0 percent against 3.4 percent inflation. Thin real-wage margins suggest constrained local consumer purchasing power even where nominal advertised pay looks healthy.
Falling accountant and business-analyst pay may reflect quieter back-office activity.
Accountant pay dropped significantly to $62,802 and Business Analyst fell significantly to $83,170, both moving opposite their national counterparts, which rose. Divergence from national trends is consistent with reduced professional-services and administrative expansion locally, even as healthcare and trades remain active.
Median advertised pay by role — La Crosse, WI-MN MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail Sales Associate | $27,040 | $32,728 | $37,131 | Moderate decline | $33,325 |
| Retail Cashier | $25,150 | $30,160 | $32,345 | Moderate increase | $31,200 |
| Warehouse/Fulfillment Associate | $32,334 | $39,063 | $39,752 | Moderate decline | $38,000 |
| CDL Truck Driver | $54,860 | $80,600 | $89,960 | Stable | $78,000 |
| Delivery Driver | $31,265 | $35,220 | $39,520 | Moderate decline | $34,344 |
| Construction Laborer | $36,532 | $48,193 | $49,920 | Significant increase | $40,560 |
| Electrician | $61,337 | $76,026 | $85,000 | Significant decline | $71,404 |
| Manufacturing Production Worker/Assembler | $34,782 | $42,640 | $45,760 | Stable | $39,520 |
| Customer Service Representative | $34,516 | $37,996 | $40,817 | Moderate decline | $39,520 |
| Food Service Worker | $28,184 | $34,320 | $34,320 | Stable | $33,756 |
| Certified Nursing Assistant / Home Health Aide | $38,771 | $43,160 | $44,720 | Stable | $41,106 |
| Administrative Assistant/Office Clerk | $34,310 | $40,350 | $46,800 | Moderate decline | $43,680 |
| HVAC Technician | $60,320 | $62,400 | $65,520 | Moderate decline | $70,720 |
| Registered Nurse | $79,061 | $93,600 | $100,300 | Significant increase | $102,581 |
| Software Engineer | $101,400 | $154,233 | $161,387 | Significant increase | $153,652 |
| Data Engineer | $92,560 | $107,042 | $127,700 | Moderate increase | $139,500 |
| Accountant | $53,481 | $62,802 | $75,113 | Significant decline | $72,182 |
| Financial Analyst | $71,032 | $80,032 | $88,893 | Moderate increase | $94,782 |
| HR Generalist/Manager | $55,640 | $62,058 | $73,415 | Moderate increase | $75,000 |
| Marketing Specialist * | $48,256 | $57,160 | $65,632 | Stable | $62,354 |
| Operations Manager * | $70,157 | $82,250 | $88,005 | Moderate increase | $85,216 |
| Elementary/Secondary School Teacher | $32,864 | $41,028 | $49,665 | Moderate decline | $56,731 |
| Account Manager | $40,597 | $62,677 | $73,739 | Stable | $92,749 |
| Warehouse Manager * | $41,352 | $75,110 | $84,529 | Moderate increase | $75,000 |
| Business Analyst | $70,000 | $83,170 | $83,170 | Significant decline | $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 | $53,040 | Moderate decline | Significant increase |
| Manufacturing | $58,156 | Moderate decline | Significant increase |
| Retail Trade | $41,533 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Transportation, Warehousing & Utilities | $47,840 | Moderate decline | Significant increase |
| Information | $73,082 | Moderate increase | Moderate decline |
| Financial Activities | $48,620 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Professional & Business Services | $51,088 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Education & Health Services | $70,358 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Leisure & Hospitality | $32,012 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Government | $67,193 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
Local market conditions
La Crosse-Onalaska's metro unemployment rate held near a cyclical low at 3.0 percent in August, down from 3.1 percent in July, even as Wisconsin shed 8,100 jobs statewide since late 2024 and national payroll growth slowed to 29,000 in September. Healthcare remains the metro's structural anchor — Gundersen Health System and Mayo Clinic La Crosse activity continues to support wage pressure in clinical and administrative roles, while advertised pay for roles like Registered Nurse (up significantly to $93,600) and Construction Laborer (up significantly to $48,193) diverges sharply from softening categories like Accountant and Business Analyst, both down significantly locally even as national pay for those roles rises.
What it means
Metro-level tightness coexists with a statewide slowdown and a national wage-inflation gap — local unemployment near 2.9-3.0 percent signals a labor pool still thin relative to demand, even as Wisconsin's broader job count contracts, a divergence that complicates any single read on whether the regional economy is expanding or consolidating. Commerce leaders weighing local investment or expansion should treat the healthcare-driven wage strength as durable while reading weakness in administrative, accounting, and retail-adjacent categories as consistent with the statewide pattern of trade and office-support contraction. Current conditions suggest monitoring whether sector divergence — strength in healthcare and skilled trades against softness in professional/administrative roles — widens further before drawing conclusions about the metro's overall direction.
Looking ahead
Worth watching: Wisconsin's statewide job count has declined since January 2025 even as La Crosse-area unemployment stays low; watch whether county-level data over the next two reporting cycles shows the metro beginning to track the state's broader contraction or continuing to outperform it.
Emerging pressure point: Black unemployment statewide stood at 7.2 percent in Q1 2026, nearly three times the white rate of 2.3 percent, alongside a statewide labor force participation decline to 64.5 percent from 65.4 percent a year ago. Local economic development conversations may increasingly need to address participation gaps, not just headline unemployment.
Potential inflection point: National WARN filings remain elevated with Amazon, Meta, Oracle and Tyson Foods among firms filing notices, while Wisconsin's 56 statewide filings in 2026 are down 7 percent year over year. Any uptick in regional manufacturing or trade-sector notices would be the clearest early signal of the state's slowdown reaching the La Crosse metro directly.
Early indicator: National job growth slowed sharply to 29,000 in September with downward revisions of 60,000 to prior months; a comparable deceleration in Wisconsin's October DWD release would be the first hard confirmation that national cooling is reaching the state's healthcare-anchored metros.
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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