Metro Job Market Pulse · General Market Conditions · September 2026
General Market Conditions Labor Market Report: Shreveport-Bossier City, LA MSA — September 2026
Shreveport wages climb as parish job counts quietly slip.
Caddo Parish employment fell 0.7% year-over-year even as average weekly wages grew 3.7%, while metro unemployment held at 4.3% against a 4.2% national rate.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- Metro unemployment rate: 4.3% — Dec 2025, vs 4.2% national, 4.2% Louisiana (Aug 2026)
- Caddo Parish employment change: -0.7% — Year-over-year to March 2026, despite 3.7% wage growth
- Projected metro job growth: +2,700 jobs (+1.6%) — 2026 forecast, 5th-largest gain among LA's 10 MSAs
- Cyber Research Park employment: 2,102 jobs — Up from 1,854 in 2024; projected 2,885 by 2027
Key takeaways
Parish employment fell even as wages rose — a mismatch worth flagging.
Caddo Parish employment declined 0.7% year-over-year through March 2026 while average weekly wages grew 3.7%, a combination more consistent with labor supply tightness than with broad hiring expansion. Economic development messaging built around job counts alone may understate how constrained the available workforce has become.
Schlumberger's footprint is the clearest tell on where local demand concentrates.
800 employees now occupy the former GM facility, with 2.5 million square feet of a 3.3 million square foot campus still available, positioning the site as a bellwether for data-center and LNG-adjacent investment. Growth looks concentrated and project-driven rather than distributed across the broader local economy.
Advertised pay for technical and clerical roles is pulling in opposite directions.
Electrician pay rose significantly locally while administrative assistant and warehouse manager postings moved down moderately, echoing the national split between hands-on and white-collar demand. Local business investment decisions may need to account for this bifurcation rather than treat 'local labor costs' as a single number.
Metro job growth outpaces the parish-level softness it sits inside.
Forecasts project 2,700 new jobs (+1.6%) metro-wide in 2026, yet core-parish employment is already contracting slightly, implying growth is skewing toward Bossier Parish and project-anchored sites like the Cyber Research Park. Commerce leaders tracking 'the metro economy' as one number risk missing this geographic divergence.
Median advertised pay by role — Shreveport-Bossier City, LA MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail Sales Associate | $20,800 | $25,625 | $29,120 | Stable | $33,325 |
| Retail Cashier | $20,800 | $22,880 | $24,960 | Moderate decline | $31,200 |
| Warehouse/Fulfillment Associate | $28,062 | $34,320 | $36,400 | Stable | $38,000 |
| CDL Truck Driver | $56,166 | $78,750 | $89,201 | Stable | $78,000 |
| Delivery Driver | $24,676 | $29,607 | $35,039 | Significant decline | $34,344 |
| Construction Laborer | $31,200 | $35,514 | $37,440 | Moderate increase | $40,560 |
| Electrician | $54,080 | $70,000 | $73,859 | Significant increase | $71,404 |
| Manufacturing Production Worker/Assembler | $29,120 | $35,665 | $44,720 | Moderate decline | $39,520 |
| Customer Service Representative | $29,120 | $33,799 | $35,381 | Moderate decline | $39,520 |
| Food Service Worker | $23,920 | $28,662 | $37,523 | Moderate increase | $33,756 |
| Certified Nursing Assistant / Home Health Aide | $29,085 | $32,760 | $37,115 | Moderate increase | $41,106 |
| Administrative Assistant/Office Clerk | $30,555 | $36,788 | $39,000 | Moderate decline | $43,680 |
| HVAC Technician | $45,331 | $55,936 | $61,936 | Moderate increase | $70,720 |
| Registered Nurse | $75,389 | $93,013 | $101,143 | Significant increase | $102,581 |
| Software Engineer | $93,213 | $126,844 | $143,932 | Significant decline | $153,652 |
| Data Engineer | $83,042 | $89,440 | $89,455 | Significant decline | $139,500 |
| Accountant | $58,056 | $73,952 | $73,953 | Significant increase | $72,182 |
| Financial Analyst | $62,958 | $75,950 | $83,525 | Significant increase | $94,782 |
| HR Generalist/Manager | $47,102 | $62,447 | $96,148 | Significant increase | $75,000 |
| Marketing Specialist * | $43,369 | $58,052 | $70,334 | Stable | $62,354 |
| Operations Manager * | $57,519 | $88,000 | $90,964 | Moderate decline | $85,216 |
| Elementary/Secondary School Teacher | $43,361 | $47,527 | $50,078 | Stable | $56,731 |
| Account Manager | $60,937 | $79,922 | $90,000 | Moderate increase | $92,749 |
| Warehouse Manager * | $45,000 | $51,506 | $59,133 | Moderate decline | $75,000 |
| Business Analyst | $68,746 | $91,070 | $91,070 | Significant increase | $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 | $59,196 | Moderate decline | Significant increase |
| Manufacturing | $62,400 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Retail Trade | $34,320 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Transportation, Warehousing & Utilities | $58,801 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Information | $53,662 | Moderate increase | Significant increase |
| Financial Activities | $54,892 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Professional & Business Services | $51,501 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Education & Health Services | $62,522 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Leisure & Hospitality | $28,087 | Significant decline | Significant increase |
| Government | $64,177 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
Local market conditions
Shreveport-Bossier labor market conditions remain tight by national standards, with the metro's 4.3% unemployment rate tracking below the national 4.2% peer comparison while Caddo Parish employment ticked down 0.7% year-over-year even as average weekly wages grew 3.7% — a sign local payroll growth has plateaued even as pay keeps climbing. Expansion at Schlumberger's reactivated GM facility and continued buildout at Bossier City's Cyber Research Park point to data-center and energy-services demand as the metro's clearest growth engine, offsetting softer momentum in retail and administrative roles where advertised pay fell this month.
What it means
Flat-to-declining parish employment alongside positive wage growth suggests the metro's labor market is tightening on the supply side rather than expanding on demand — a dynamic that matters more for workforce development and site-selection planning than for day-to-day staffing. Commerce leaders evaluating expansion or relocation decisions should weigh the Schlumberger and Cyber Research Park buildouts as evidence of durable, project-anchored demand rather than broad-based business growth, since most non-technical, non-energy occupational categories in the local pay data are flat or declining. Current conditions suggest reviewing workforce pipeline investments — technical training, trades, and research-park-adjacent programs — ahead of anticipated 2026-2027 job growth projections, rather than waiting for broader metro employment numbers to confirm the trend.
Looking ahead
Expected: BLS and Louisiana Workforce Commission September metro data releases in October will show whether the 4.3% unemployment rate held or drifted alongside the statewide dip to 4.2%. A continued gap between parish employment and wage growth would reinforce the tightening-supply read.
Worth watching: Cyber Research Park employment is projected to climb from 2,102 to 2,885 by 2027; near-term leasing or hiring announcements there would be an early signal the metro's technical-sector momentum is accelerating ahead of schedule.
Emerging pressure point: Louisiana's statewide labor force participation rate sits at 58.4%, 43rd nationally; if Shreveport-Bossier tracks that trend, local employers and economic developers may face a structural labor-supply ceiling even as project pipelines expand.
Potential inflection point: Statewide mega-project spillover — LNG, data centers, advanced manufacturing — has driven record Louisiana employment; watch whether any of that capital investment pipeline extends northwest into the Shreveport-Bossier footprint beyond Schlumberger.
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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