Metro Job Market Pulse · General Market Conditions · September 2026
General Market Conditions Labor Market Report: York-Hanover, PA MSA — September 2026
York County labor market defies the national cooldown.
York-Hanover's 3.5% unemployment rate and 3.4% wage growth both outpace national and state figures, even as U.S. payroll growth slowed to 29,000 jobs in September and national wage gains fell behind inflation.
Free archive edition. Published by WageScape as sent to subscribers; data as of September 2026.
Key indicators
- York-Hanover unemployment rate: 3.5% — vs 4.1% PA, 4.2% national (Aug/Sept 2026)
- Local wage growth vs inflation: 3.4% — Outpaces inflation; national wages (3.0%) trail CPI (3.4%)
- Online job postings, York County: 9,508 — Up 7.3% year-over-year, August 2026
- National payroll growth, September: 29,000 — Well below 45,000 12-month average
Key takeaways
York's labor market is outrunning the state and nation.
A 3.5% unemployment rate sits six-tenths below Pennsylvania's 4.1% and seven-tenths below the national 4.2%, while postings grew 7.3% year-over-year even as U.S. payroll growth slowed to 29,000 in September. The gap suggests local economic momentum has decoupled, at least temporarily, from the national cooling trend.
Local wages are beating inflation; nationally, they are not.
York County wages rose 3.4%, ahead of regional inflation, while national average hourly earnings growth of 3.0% now trails 3.4% CPI growth for the first time in two years. That divergence is consistent with stronger real consumer purchasing power locally than the national headline would imply.
Healthcare anchors the metro's job base amid manufacturing softness.
York Hospital and WellSpan Health rank among the top five area employers, consistent with the statewide pattern of health and education adding 36,000 Pennsylvania jobs over the past year while manufacturing — York's largest sector — shows slight declines in line with national trends. Commerce leaders should treat healthcare and logistics, not manufacturing, as the metro's current growth engines.
An aging workforce raises a longer-horizon labor supply question.
With 23.4% of York County's working-age population between 55 and 64, a meaningful share of the current labor force sits within a decade of retirement eligibility. Government and commerce planners may want to factor this demographic profile into workforce-participation forecasts rather than assuming current labor supply levels persist unchanged.
Median advertised pay by role — York-Hanover, PA MSA
| Role | 25th percentile | Median advertised pay | 75th percentile | Metro trend | National median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail Sales Associate | $25,119 | $31,269 | $36,382 | Stable | $33,325 |
| Retail Cashier | $24,862 | $28,867 | $31,200 | Stable | $31,200 |
| Warehouse/Fulfillment Associate | $32,023 | $35,871 | $39,520 | Stable | $38,000 |
| CDL Truck Driver | $59,993 | $79,300 | $88,500 | Moderate increase | $78,000 |
| Delivery Driver | $31,444 | $34,019 | $38,697 | Significant decline | $34,344 |
| Construction Laborer | $35,360 | $39,520 | $43,680 | Stable | $40,560 |
| Electrician | $58,933 | $67,389 | $71,715 | Stable | $71,404 |
| Manufacturing Production Worker/Assembler | $34,320 | $39,520 | $42,640 | Stable | $39,520 |
| Customer Service Representative | $33,616 | $38,005 | $42,500 | Stable | $39,520 |
| Food Service Worker | $28,700 | $30,160 | $31,141 | Moderate decline | $33,756 |
| Certified Nursing Assistant / Home Health Aide | $32,077 | $39,453 | $45,513 | Stable | $41,106 |
| Administrative Assistant/Office Clerk | $34,501 | $40,494 | $41,780 | Stable | $43,680 |
| HVAC Technician | $57,350 | $72,800 | $82,977 | Moderate increase | $70,720 |
| Registered Nurse | $86,562 | $104,675 | $112,656 | Moderate increase | $102,581 |
| Software Engineer | $93,124 | $131,623 | $150,633 | Moderate decline | $153,652 |
| Data Engineer | $82,468 | $104,125 | $132,210 | Significant decline | $139,500 |
| Accountant | $56,616 | $65,000 | $67,605 | Significant decline | $72,182 |
| Financial Analyst | $68,677 | $82,050 | $94,024 | Moderate decline | $94,782 |
| HR Generalist/Manager | $56,387 | $70,000 | $76,325 | Moderate increase | $75,000 |
| Marketing Specialist | $39,773 | $50,000 | $51,430 | Significant decline | $62,354 |
| Operations Manager * | $71,998 | $82,960 | $98,931 | Stable | $85,216 |
| Elementary/Secondary School Teacher | $34,401 | $51,552 | $58,031 | Moderate increase | $56,731 |
| Account Manager | $53,479 | $72,500 | $83,395 | Significant increase | $92,749 |
| Warehouse Manager * | $52,917 | $74,000 | $81,500 | Moderate increase | $75,000 |
| Business Analyst | $81,387 | $94,631 | $105,318 | 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 | $59,395 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Manufacturing | $61,038 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Retail Trade | $39,068 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
| Transportation, Warehousing & Utilities | $58,000 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Information | $44,381 | Moderate decline | Significant increase |
| Financial Activities | $52,500 | Moderate decline | Significant increase |
| Professional & Business Services | $51,207 | Moderate decline | Significant increase |
| Education & Health Services | $55,619 | Moderate increase | Significant increase |
| Leisure & Hospitality | $32,257 | Stable | Significant increase |
| Government | $71,116 | Significant increase | Significant increase |
Local market conditions
York-Hanover's 3.5% August unemployment rate continues to run well below both Pennsylvania's 4.1% and the national 4.2% figure, even as online job postings rose 7.3% year-over-year to 9,508 in August, suggesting local labor demand has not followed the national hiring slowdown that produced just 29,000 net U.S. jobs in September. Local wage growth of 3.4% continues to outpace inflation, a divergence from the national picture, where average hourly earnings growth of 3.0% now trails 3.4% inflation, meaning York County workers are retaining purchasing power that their national counterparts are losing.
What it means
Metro-level resilience against a cooling national and state backdrop (Pennsylvania shed 6,000 jobs from August to September as unemployment ticked to 4.1%) signals York County's economic base — anchored by health systems, Amazon's regional logistics footprint, and federal/public-sector employment — remains more insulated from the national slowdown than many comparable metros. Commerce leaders evaluating local expansion or investment timing should weigh this local-national gap carefully, since continued postings growth alongside wage gains ahead of inflation points to real, not just nominal, consumer spending capacity in the metro. Consider monitoring whether York's 3.5% unemployment rate holds through Q4 as a leading signal of whether the metro's momentum is durable or simply lagging the national deceleration by a quarter or two.
Looking ahead
Potential inflection point: York's unemployment rate has held near multi-year lows, but Pennsylvania's rate just rose to 4.1% from 3.7% a month earlier. Watch whether York's next reading follows the statewide uptick or continues to diverge.
Expected: BLS county-level data for September will not post for several weeks; the August reading (3.5% unemployment, 9,508 postings) remains the most current confirmed metro figure through this briefing. Treat any September national or state headlines as directional context, not a direct read on York conditions.
Worth watching: Pennsylvania construction and government employment both sit below year-ago levels statewide, sectors that intersect directly with municipal budgets and public infrastructure planning. Local economic development officials may want to track whether York County construction activity follows the statewide contraction or holds steady given regional logistics-sector demand.
Early indicator: National WARN filings remain below year-ago pace (163,273 affected workers in 2026 versus 261,814 in 2025 per WARNact.io), and Pennsylvania has logged only 17 notices affecting 1,899 workers in the past 90 days, none in York County to date. A continued absence of local WARN activity would reinforce the metro's relative stability narrative.
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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