Metro Job Market Pulse · General Market Conditions · September 2026
General Market Conditions Labor Market Report: San Antonio, TX MSA — September 2026
San Antonio job losses widen as wages stall behind Texas pace.
San Antonio-New Braunfels lost 1,600 employed workers year-over-year through August while wages grew just 1.3%, less than half the 2.9% Texas rate and well behind Austin's 7,500-job gain in the same window.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- Metro unemployment rate: 4.5% — vs 4.0-4.4% Texas statewide range, Aug 2026
- Metro wage growth: 1.3% — vs 2.9% Texas, 3.5% U.S., June 2026
- Employed workers, year-over-year: -1,600 — while Austin added 7,500 jobs, Aug 2026
- Government sector employment: -2.7% — year-over-year, San Antonio MSA
Key takeaways
San Antonio wage growth is decoupling from the state story.
At 1.3% year-over-year through June, local wage growth sits less than half the Texas rate of 2.9% and well under the national 3.5% figure. That gap, sustained over several months, is consistent with softer local demand for labor rather than a temporary blip and warrants tracking alongside consumer spending data.
Government and information losses are doing more damage than headline unemployment suggests.
A 4.5% unemployment rate looks unremarkable next to the state's 4.0-4.4% range, but it masks a 2.7% government payroll decline and a 6.6% drop in information-sector employment. Both sectors have historically anchored stable, higher-wage activity in San Antonio, so their contraction changes the composition of local income even where the topline rate holds steady.
Construction and logistics are the metro's counterweight, not its whole story.
Mining/construction (9.6%), professional/business services (8.9%), and leisure/hospitality (4.0%) growth rates are genuinely strong and track Texas's broader construction boom. But these gains are concentrated in sectors less exposed to wage growth than the ones contracting, which may explain why aggregate metro wage growth hasn't kept pace despite job creation.
Austin's gain looks like San Antonio's loss, at least this month.
Austin added 7,500 jobs in the same period San Antonio lost 1,600 employed workers, a contrast regional economic development officials will want contextualized rather than ignored. Whether this reflects a durable shift in corridor investment or a one-month statistical noise point is the open question for the next quarter.
Median advertised pay by role — San Antonio, TX MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail Sales Associate | $24,874 | $30,000 | $34,249 | Stable | $33,325 |
| Retail Cashier | $23,405 | $27,040 | $29,120 | Stable | $31,200 |
| Warehouse/Fulfillment Associate | $30,222 | $34,320 | $37,440 | Stable | $38,000 |
| CDL Truck Driver | $55,375 | $78,000 | $85,253 | Stable | $78,000 |
| Delivery Driver | $27,527 | $32,911 | $37,719 | Stable | $34,344 |
| Construction Laborer | $31,200 | $36,400 | $38,870 | Stable | $40,560 |
| Electrician | $55,186 | $69,224 | $72,800 | Significant increase | $71,404 |
| Manufacturing Production Worker/Assembler | $30,160 | $34,216 | $37,440 | Stable | $39,520 |
| Customer Service Representative | $33,280 | $38,475 | $45,000 | Stable | $39,520 |
| Food Service Worker | $27,697 | $31,686 | $37,793 | Stable | $33,756 |
| Certified Nursing Assistant / Home Health Aide | $31,891 | $36,400 | $39,188 | Stable | $41,106 |
| Administrative Assistant/Office Clerk | $31,744 | $38,822 | $42,640 | Stable | $43,680 |
| HVAC Technician | $57,008 | $69,273 | $80,858 | Significant increase | $70,720 |
| Registered Nurse | $76,380 | $88,096 | $97,498 | Moderate increase | $102,581 |
| Software Engineer | $105,437 | $136,848 | $150,925 | Stable | $153,652 |
| Data Engineer | $92,892 | $122,227 | $141,921 | Stable | $139,500 |
| Accountant | $55,783 | $65,014 | $72,500 | Stable | $72,182 |
| Financial Analyst | $68,508 | $84,280 | $93,318 | Moderate increase | $94,782 |
| HR Generalist/Manager | $52,500 | $63,864 | $76,000 | Stable | $75,000 |
| Marketing Specialist | $46,481 | $60,000 | $66,289 | Stable | $62,354 |
| Operations Manager | $55,239 | $76,011 | $79,346 | Stable | $85,216 |
| Elementary/Secondary School Teacher | $33,280 | $53,744 | $59,776 | Significant increase | $56,731 |
| Account Manager | $66,968 | $89,654 | $100,000 | Significant increase | $92,749 |
| Warehouse Manager * | $48,368 | $70,237 | $81,507 | Significant decline | $75,000 |
| Business Analyst | $74,246 | $91,201 | $104,000 | Moderate 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 | $60,874 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Manufacturing | $80,083 | Significant increase | Stable |
| Retail Trade | $37,122 | Moderate increase | Significant increase |
| Transportation, Warehousing & Utilities | $53,040 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Information | $80,000 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Financial Activities | $52,000 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Professional & Business Services | $66,344 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Education & Health Services | $62,400 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Leisure & Hospitality | $31,540 | Stable | Moderate increase |
| Government | $66,919 | Significant increase | Stable |
Local market conditions
San Antonio-New Braunfels shed 1,600 employed workers year-over-year through August even as the metro unemployment rate held at 4.5%, a divergence that points to softening labor demand rather than a surge of new job seekers. Wage growth has nearly stalled at 1.3% year-over-year through June, far behind Texas's 2.9% and the national 3.5% pace, while losses concentrated in information (-6.6%), education and health services (-6.1%), and government (-2.7%) offset continued expansion in construction, professional and business services, and logistics.
What it means
Wage growth running roughly two percentage points behind the state average signals that local purchasing power is eroding faster here than in peer Texas metros, a dynamic that touches consumer spending at retailers, restaurants, and service businesses across the metro regardless of sector. Government payroll contraction and information-sector weakness suggest the public-sector and tech-adjacent cushion that once stabilized the regional economy is thinning, even as construction and logistics growth point to tangible, broad-based momentum elsewhere. Commerce leaders evaluating expansion or investment timing may want to weigh San Antonio's sector-level divergence against Austin's stronger July-August job gains before assuming metro-wide softness is uniform.
Looking ahead
Potential inflection point: Watch whether San Antonio's wage growth gap versus Texas (1.3% vs 2.9%) narrows or widens in the next BLS release. A continued widening would support a structural, not cyclical, reading of the metro's underperformance.
Early indicator: Government payroll contraction (-2.7% year-over-year) bears monitoring against federal workforce reduction announcements nationally; San Antonio's sizable federal and military employment base makes it more exposed than most Texas metros to further federal downsizing.
Worth watching: Construction's 9.6% growth rate tracks statewide momentum tied to data center and infrastructure activity. Confirm whether this pace holds through fall or reflects project-specific timing that could taper.
Emerging pressure point: Information sector employment down 6.6-7.7% locally, against a national information-sector contraction, suggests this is a shared structural trend rather than a San Antonio-specific event, worth distinguishing from locally-driven causes when communicating to stakeholders.
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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