Metro Job Market Pulse · General Market Conditions · September 2026
General Market Conditions Labor Market Report: Savannah, GA MSA — September 2026
Savannah wages outpace Georgia average as port economy holds steady.
Chatham County's average weekly wage rose 5.7% year-over-year to $1,306 — topping Georgia's 3.3% statewide gain — while national wage growth slows to 3.0% against 3.4% inflation.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- Chatham County wage growth: +5.7% — vs 3.3% Georgia average, Q4 2025
- Chatham County average weekly wage: $1,306 — Highest gain among GA's 12 largest counties
- Savannah MSA unemployment rate: 2.9% — March 2026, most recent available; GA at 3.2% in Aug
- National wage growth vs. inflation: 3.0% vs 3.4% — Real wages declining nationally, Sept 2026
Key takeaways
Savannah's wage growth is outrunning the state average.
Chatham County's 5.7% average weekly wage gain tops every other large Georgia county and nearly doubles the statewide 3.3% increase, pointing to a local labor market running hotter than the Georgia norm. That divergence is consistent with continued port-driven investment rather than a broad-based statewide trend, a distinction that matters for how local leaders benchmark the metro against state-level headlines.
Port and logistics strength looks like the metro's load-bearing wall.
Chatham County accounts for roughly 73% of coastal Georgia's port-supported jobs, with trade, transportation and utilities the largest single employment category in the metro. Any shift in tariff policy or national trade volumes carries outsized local consequence here relative to most Georgia metros, a bare fact worth tracking without assigning it political framing.
National wage-inflation squeeze has not yet shown up locally in the same form.
National wage growth has slowed to 3.0% against 3.4% inflation, eroding real purchasing power broadly, while Savannah's quarterly wage gains have run well above that pace. Whether that premium holds through the next data cycle is the more important question than this month's snapshot alone.
A thin post-2024 WARN record suggests limited disruption risk, not zero risk.
Savannah ranks fourth among Georgia cities for WARN Act filings over the past 24 months, with 916 workers affected — modest relative to Georgia's statewide total of 27,308. International Paper's 691-worker mill closure last year remains the dominant single event shaping that count, underscoring how concentrated — not systemic — local disruption has been.
Median advertised pay by role — Savannah, GA MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail Sales Associate | $25,236 | $31,200 | $34,314 | Moderate increase | $33,325 |
| Retail Cashier | $23,941 | $27,040 | $29,120 | Moderate decline | $31,200 |
| Warehouse/Fulfillment Associate | $31,733 | $37,440 | $39,520 | Stable | $38,000 |
| CDL Truck Driver | $54,157 | $73,000 | $83,661 | Moderate decline | $78,000 |
| Delivery Driver | $30,556 | $38,449 | $44,956 | Significant increase | $34,344 |
| Construction Laborer | $34,251 | $37,440 | $39,520 | Stable | $40,560 |
| Electrician | $53,388 | $62,172 | $70,237 | Moderate increase | $71,404 |
| Manufacturing Production Worker/Assembler | $33,280 | $39,520 | $41,600 | Stable | $39,520 |
| Customer Service Representative | $31,173 | $36,400 | $41,600 | Stable | $39,520 |
| Food Service Worker | $26,632 | $30,003 | $34,320 | Moderate decline | $33,756 |
| Certified Nursing Assistant / Home Health Aide | $30,712 | $34,551 | $36,883 | Stable | $41,106 |
| Administrative Assistant/Office Clerk | $30,677 | $38,722 | $41,600 | Stable | $43,680 |
| HVAC Technician | $58,280 | $68,640 | $72,800 | Significant increase | $70,720 |
| Registered Nurse | $80,020 | $93,581 | $100,443 | Moderate increase | $102,581 |
| Software Engineer | $70,000 | $139,551 | $160,371 | Significant increase | $153,652 |
| Data Engineer | $115,240 | $133,636 | $141,639 | Significant increase | $139,500 |
| Accountant | $51,655 | $60,200 | $65,753 | Moderate increase | $72,182 |
| Financial Analyst | $68,173 | $75,451 | $81,718 | Moderate decline | $94,782 |
| HR Generalist/Manager | $53,875 | $60,000 | $63,814 | Moderate increase | $75,000 |
| Marketing Specialist | $41,283 | $49,860 | $58,686 | Moderate decline | $62,354 |
| Operations Manager | $67,500 | $85,000 | $92,257 | Significant increase | $85,216 |
| Elementary/Secondary School Teacher | $30,994 | $50,455 | $58,993 | Moderate increase | $56,731 |
| Account Manager | $63,000 | $85,293 | $90,734 | Moderate increase | $92,749 |
| Warehouse Manager * | $54,937 | $80,500 | $99,000 | Moderate increase | $75,000 |
| Business Analyst | $72,509 | $85,475 | $89,609 | 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 | $59,280 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Manufacturing | $74,000 | Moderate increase | Moderate decline |
| Retail Trade | $35,686 | Moderate increase | Moderate decline |
| Transportation, Warehousing & Utilities | $56,869 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Information | $49,995 | Stable | Moderate decline |
| Financial Activities | $50,285 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Professional & Business Services | $44,716 | Significant decline | Significant increase |
| Education & Health Services | $78,010 | Significant increase | Stable |
| Leisure & Hospitality | $32,276 | Moderate decline | Significant increase |
| Government | $66,454 | Significant increase | Significant decline |
Local market conditions
Chatham County employment rose 5.7% year-over-year in the most recent quarterly count, with the average weekly wage climbing to $1,306 — the strongest wage gain among Georgia's twelve largest counties and well ahead of the state's 3.3% average. Port-driven trade and transportation activity, alongside steady health care expansion, continues to anchor momentum even as 20,534 active job postings signal sustained labor demand across a metro where labor force participation holds near 65.5%, above both state and national rates.
What it means
Wage growth outpacing the state average suggests Savannah's labor costs are rising faster than many peer Georgia metros, a dynamic commerce leaders should weigh against the region's continued population and job growth when assessing whether local purchasing power and business investment conditions remain favorable. Public-sector and health care stability offer a buffer against the national pullback in government and professional-services employment, but Georgia's statewide softening in professional/technical services (down 11,600 jobs year-over-year) bears watching for ripple effects into Savannah's professional-services base. Current conditions suggest economic development leaders consider monitoring whether port and logistics wage gains are translating into broader downstream retail and service spending, rather than assuming uniform strength across the local business base.
Looking ahead
Worth watching: Next quarterly BLS county wage data will show whether Chatham County's 5.7% wage gain was a one-quarter outlier or the start of a sustained trend — a distinction that matters for how commerce leaders read the metro's cost trajectory against state and national benchmarks.
Emerging pressure point: Georgia's statewide professional/technical services employment fell 11,600 year-over-year even as administrative/support and retail trade gained. Watch whether Savannah's professional-services base, smaller than Atlanta's but present, shows similar softening in upcoming county-level releases.
Policy-relevant signal: Port-dependent metros nationally remain sensitive to tariff policy shifts; any changes to trade volumes or shipping patterns at the Georgia Ports Authority merit neutral, fact-based tracking given trade/transportation/utilities' outsized 24.2% share of local employment.
Data gap to monitor: Official MSA-level unemployment figures for September 2026 remain unreleased at time of publication; the most current reliable read is March 2026's 2.9% rate. Expect a lag before more current metro-specific unemployment data confirms whether the tight labor market persisted through summer.
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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