Metro Job Market Pulse · General Market Conditions · September 2026
General Market Conditions Labor Market Report: Oshkosh-Neenah, WI MSA — September 2026
Oshkosh jobs shrink even as unemployment stays near record lows.
Winnebago County's 3.1% unemployment rate sits among Wisconsin's lowest, yet the metro posted the state's steepest year-over-year employment decline (-1.2%), a sign the tight market reflects a shrinking workforce more than economic strength.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- MSA unemployment rate: 3.1% — July 2026, down from 3.2% in June
- Winnebago Co. employment change: -1.2% — Steepest decline among WI's 7 largest counties
- Avg weekly wage, Winnebago Co.: $1,383 — +1.7% YoY, trailing WI's statewide 3.7% pace
- Wisconsin core inflation vs. wage growth: 3.9% vs 3.7-4.2% — Thin real-wage margin statewide
Key takeaways
Low unemployment is masking a shrinking workforce, not strength.
Winnebago County's 1.2% employment decline from September 2024 to 2025 occurred despite a 2.7% jobless rate, a pattern consistent with people leaving the labor force rather than employers adding jobs. Economic development planning should weight labor force participation, not just the unemployment headline, when assessing capacity for new investment.
Manufacturing softness breaks from the metro's industrial identity.
Advertised pay for manufacturing production workers fell moderately even as Oshkosh Corporation and peers remain active employers, mirroring statewide manufacturing's 0.2% employment decline. A historically manufacturing-anchored metro showing wage softness in that sector is a signal worth tracking against Wisconsin's broader Trade/Transportation/Manufacturing contraction.
Warehouse and logistics pay diverging upward from factory floor pay.
Warehouse/fulfillment advertised pay rose moderately to $43,472 (above the $38,000 national figure) while manufacturing assembler pay declined, suggesting the metro's blue-collar economic momentum is shifting toward distribution and fulfillment rather than production. That divergence may matter for how local economic development corps pitch the metro's industrial strengths to prospective employers.
White-collar technical pay is cooling here while the nation holds firm.
Software engineer advertised pay fell significantly to $104,588, a wide and widening gap against the $153,652 national median, while business analyst and accountant postings also declined. A metro-level pullback in technical and professional advertised pay, even as national figures hold stable, points to a narrower local base of knowledge-economy demand than the broader Fox Valley corridor narrative suggests.
Median advertised pay by role — Oshkosh-Neenah, WI MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail Sales Associate | $23,664 | $28,072 | $30,689 | Moderate decline | $33,325 |
| Retail Cashier | $24,273 | $30,160 | $30,680 | Moderate decline | $31,200 |
| Warehouse/Fulfillment Associate | $33,280 | $43,472 | $43,680 | Moderate increase | $38,000 |
| CDL Truck Driver | $55,420 | $73,398 | $83,621 | Stable | $78,000 |
| Delivery Driver | $29,942 | $38,257 | $42,640 | Stable | $34,344 |
| Construction Laborer | $39,520 | $43,680 | $48,004 | Stable | $40,560 |
| Electrician | $65,962 | $76,960 | $81,120 | Moderate decline | $71,404 |
| Manufacturing Production Worker/Assembler | $35,360 | $41,256 | $47,008 | Moderate decline | $39,520 |
| Customer Service Representative | $32,240 | $39,414 | $46,405 | Moderate increase | $39,520 |
| Food Service Worker | $26,826 | $30,680 | $33,930 | Significant decline | $33,756 |
| Certified Nursing Assistant / Home Health Aide | $38,480 | $45,760 | $50,960 | Stable | $41,106 |
| Administrative Assistant/Office Clerk | $36,355 | $41,156 | $45,760 | Moderate increase | $43,680 |
| HVAC Technician | $62,400 | $68,560 | $70,000 | Moderate increase | $70,720 |
| Registered Nurse | $87,711 | $101,117 | $108,884 | Stable | $102,581 |
| Software Engineer | $59,691 | $104,588 | $122,520 | Significant decline | $153,652 |
| Data Engineer * | $89,725 | $127,700 | $141,561 | Moderate increase | $139,500 |
| Accountant | $54,127 | $64,721 | $66,948 | Significant decline | $72,182 |
| Financial Analyst | $63,547 | $79,309 | $85,188 | Stable | $94,782 |
| HR Generalist/Manager | $52,000 | $69,240 | $76,403 | Stable | $75,000 |
| Marketing Specialist | $53,439 | $60,000 | $67,157 | Significant increase | $62,354 |
| Operations Manager * | $70,157 | $82,250 | $88,005 | Moderate increase | $85,216 |
| Elementary/Secondary School Teacher | $31,200 | $39,000 | $49,533 | Moderate decline | $56,731 |
| Account Manager | $55,000 | $66,560 | $80,921 | Significant increase | $92,749 |
| Warehouse Manager * | $41,352 | $75,110 | $84,529 | Moderate increase | $75,000 |
| Business Analyst | $73,323 | $79,542 | $94,335 | 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 | $62,400 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Manufacturing | $71,584 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Retail Trade | $34,321 | Moderate decline | Significant increase |
| Transportation, Warehousing & Utilities | $54,600 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Information | $73,382 | Moderate increase | Significant decline |
| Financial Activities | $68,163 | Moderate increase | Significant increase |
| Professional & Business Services | $57,414 | Moderate decline | Significant increase |
| Education & Health Services | $68,500 | Significant decline | Significant increase |
| Leisure & Hospitality | $35,190 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Government | $59,858 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
Local market conditions
Winnebago County's 3.1% unemployment rate remains among Wisconsin's lowest, yet the Oshkosh-Neenah MSA posted the largest over-the-year employment decline among the state's seven largest counties, a combination suggesting a labor market tightened less by growth than by workers exiting or relocating. Advertised pay for manufacturing production workers and software engineers has softened locally even as warehouse and data-engineering pay climbed, pointing to an economy where goods-movement and logistics activity is outrunning traditional manufacturing and white-collar technical hiring.
What it means
Local employment contraction alongside low unemployment is consistent with a shrinking labor pool rather than retreating demand, a dynamic that affects site-selection and expansion conversations more than compensation strategy. Commerce leaders weighing local investment should distinguish between a market that is cooling because demand is soft versus one constrained because fewer working-age residents are available to staff new activity; current conditions suggest reviewing labor force participation trends alongside unemployment before benchmarking expansion feasibility against headline jobless figures alone.
Looking ahead
Worth watching: Winnebago County's employment decline has persisted for a full year; a second consecutive quarterly BLS release showing continued contraction would confirm a structural labor-supply story rather than a one-time statistical blip worth flagging to state economists.
Emerging pressure point: Wisconsin's wage growth (3.7-4.2% projected) is running close to core inflation (3.9%), and real purchasing power gains are thin; local retail and food-service advertised pay already shows declines, a combination that could show up as softer consumer spending data in Fox Valley retail corridors.
Early indicator: National WARN filings from Amazon, Meta, and other large employers have not yet produced a visible local echo, but commerce leaders should watch whether regional logistics or distribution employers see any spillover given the metro's rising warehouse/fulfillment pay trend.
Potential inflection point: Wisconsin's Black unemployment rate (7.2%) running nearly three times the white rate (2.3%) is a statewide equity signal; whether this gap narrows or widens locally over the next two quarters will matter for assessing the breadth of the metro's labor force participation recovery.
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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