Metro Job Market Pulse · General Market Conditions · September 2026
General Market Conditions Labor Market Report: Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA MSA — September 2026
Waterloo labor force shrinks as county unemployment outpaces the state.
Black Hawk County unemployment sits at 4.6% against Iowa's steady 3.2%, even as the metro's civilian labor force has contracted from 90,300 to roughly 87,200 over the past several months.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- Black Hawk County unemployment: 4.6% — vs 3.2% Iowa statewide
- Metro civilian labor force: ~87,200 — down from 90,300 in Sept 2025
- Metro largest employment sector: ~15,775 jobs — Manufacturing, largest supersector
- Iowa statewide unemployment: 3.2% — Steady 4th consecutive month
Key takeaways
Black Hawk County unemployment diverges sharply from the state trend.
County unemployment sits at 4.6% against Iowa's steady 3.2%, a gap wide enough to suggest metro-specific softness rather than a statewide pattern. Press and policy audiences asking whether the metro is tracking the state's resilience should note it currently is not.
Manufacturing's wage story is weaker locally than nationally.
Manufacturing Production Worker advertised pay is down significantly in the metro while holding stable nationally, even as the sector remains the area's single largest employment base near 15,775 jobs. That divergence is consistent with national data showing manufacturing as one of the few sectors adding jobs, suggesting volume may be holding even as per-worker pay softens locally.
Healthcare and skilled trades are the metro's clear bright spots.
Registered Nurse and HVAC Technician advertised pay both moved up significantly, outperforming their national counterparts — a local signal that tracks Iowa's statewide pattern of healthcare and construction as the only consistently growing sectors. Commerce leaders evaluating where local spending power is concentrating should watch these two categories closely.
Shrinking labor force, not just job losses, is the real metro story.
Civilian labor force fell from 90,300 to roughly 87,200 over the past several months, a contraction pattern that echoes Iowa's statewide retirement-driven workforce decline. A shrinking labor pool constrains the metro's capacity to support new investment even where unemployment appears moderate.
Median advertised pay by role — Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail Sales Associate | $24,209 | $28,156 | $33,280 | Moderate decline | $33,325 |
| Retail Cashier | $25,255 | $28,897 | $30,701 | Stable | $31,200 |
| Warehouse/Fulfillment Associate | $35,946 | $46,956 | $49,483 | Stable | $38,000 |
| CDL Truck Driver | $60,364 | $80,000 | $92,349 | Moderate increase | $78,000 |
| Delivery Driver | $26,848 | $31,332 | $33,329 | Significant decline | $34,344 |
| Construction Laborer | $38,314 | $42,674 | $47,840 | Moderate decline | $40,560 |
| Electrician | $58,973 | $68,547 | $69,943 | Moderate decline | $71,404 |
| Manufacturing Production Worker/Assembler | $32,616 | $37,004 | $41,600 | Significant decline | $39,520 |
| Customer Service Representative | $33,960 | $38,315 | $40,463 | Moderate increase | $39,520 |
| Food Service Worker | $29,297 | $33,072 | $35,169 | Stable | $33,756 |
| Certified Nursing Assistant / Home Health Aide | $35,173 | $38,219 | $42,548 | Significant decline | $41,106 |
| Administrative Assistant/Office Clerk | $33,800 | $40,000 | $42,640 | Moderate increase | $43,680 |
| HVAC Technician | $59,434 | $80,288 | $81,120 | Significant increase | $70,720 |
| Registered Nurse | $83,084 | $109,928 | $117,906 | Significant increase | $102,581 |
| Software Engineer | $95,000 | $120,476 | $136,602 | Significant increase | $153,652 |
| Data Engineer | $107,688 | $107,689 | $111,185 | Significant increase | $139,500 |
| Accountant | $56,959 | $75,000 | $86,946 | Stable | $72,182 |
| Financial Analyst | $67,380 | $74,822 | $85,000 | Moderate increase | $94,782 |
| HR Generalist/Manager | $48,635 | $53,356 | $62,500 | Significant decline | $75,000 |
| Marketing Specialist * | $47,758 | $65,257 | $76,380 | Significant increase | $62,354 |
| Operations Manager * | $64,060 | $94,296 | $101,538 | Moderate increase | $85,216 |
| Elementary/Secondary School Teacher | $30,810 | $51,137 | $65,250 | Moderate increase | $56,731 |
| Account Manager | $50,612 | $71,657 | $83,181 | Moderate decline | $92,749 |
| Warehouse Manager * | $52,500 | $60,000 | $60,000 | Stable | $75,000 |
| Business Analyst * | $73,430 | $91,978 | $99,150 | Moderate 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 | $51,646 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Manufacturing | $62,704 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Retail Trade | $34,850 | Moderate increase | Significant increase |
| Transportation, Warehousing & Utilities | $59,564 | Significant decline | Significant increase |
| Information | $51,928 | Significant decline | Significant increase |
| Financial Activities | $57,646 | Moderate decline | Significant increase |
| Professional & Business Services | $73,046 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Education & Health Services | $88,400 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Leisure & Hospitality | $31,200 | Moderate decline | Significant increase |
| Government | $64,893 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
Local market conditions
Waterloo-Cedar Falls labor force has contracted meaningfully, from 90,300 in September 2025 to roughly 87,200 by early 2026, while manufacturing remains the metro's largest employment base at approximately 15,775 jobs even as several advertised manufacturing and trades roles show significant metro-level pay softening. Black Hawk County's 4.6% unemployment rate continues to run above the metro core's 3.6-3.9% range and well above Iowa's statewide 3.2%, suggesting the metro's labor market is cooling faster than the state as a whole even as sectors like healthcare and skilled trades show localized wage strength.
What it means
A metro where labor force is shrinking but unemployment is rising simultaneously points to demand softness rather than a tight-labor story — manufacturing and logistics pay (Manufacturing Production Worker, Delivery Driver, Electrician all down significantly) is compressing even as healthcare (Registered Nurse up significantly) and skilled trades (HVAC up significantly) pull away, a bifurcation that mirrors the national white-collar/blue-collar split. Commerce leaders weighing local expansion or investment decisions should treat this as a mixed-signal environment: capacity exists in the labor pool, but divergent sector performance means due diligence should be sector-specific rather than metro-wide. Current conditions suggest reviewing which sectors are actually absorbing labor-force exits versus which are shedding capacity before treating county-level unemployment as a single number.
Looking ahead
Data release watch: BLS September 2026 metro-level employment data releases in October; the current labor-force contraction trend (90.3K to 87.2K) is based on data through early 2026 and warrants confirmation once the new release lands.
Emerging pressure point: Black Hawk County's 4.6% unemployment rate, well above both the metro core and state figures, bears watching for whether it is a lagging artifact or an early signal of broader metro softening.
Worth watching: Statewide manufacturing added 1,300 jobs in August even as local manufacturing wages softened; watch whether Waterloo-Cedar Falls, as Iowa's largest manufacturing employment base, participates in that statewide gain or continues to diverge.
Policy signal: Iowa's $2.1 billion UI trust balance is enabling the lowest employer tax rates in 2027 statewide — a bare fact relevant to commerce leaders' cost planning regardless of metro-level employment trends.
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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