The Merker Report, Q1 2026 Edition, Published February 2026
Q1 2026: Market And Employment Trends
The first edition of 2026 opened with the hiring trends Erin saw forming as the year began, then laid out the national data behind them: occupations, wages, eleven industries and the fifteen strongest U.S. city markets.
Inside This Edition
- New Hiring Trends For 2026
- What was shifting as budgets reset, with practical tips for finding talent faster and targeting the right candidate pools.
- Economic Performance Indicators
- The national baseline leaders were planning against at the start of the year.
- Occupational Trends
- Job growth and wage growth by occupation, the view that matters most before setting a salary band.
- Industry Trends
- Job growth across construction, financial services, health services and education, government, information and technology, leisure and hospitality, manufacturing, mining, professional and business services, trade and transportation, and other services.
- Geographic Trends
- The top ranked fifteen U.S. cities for employment momentum.
- Employment Conditions
- Each industry's share of total employment, plus monthly job gains and unemployment from 2024 into 2025.
- Workforce And Education
- Unemployment by gender and age since 2010, and median income by education level.
The Market Moment
This edition shipped alongside the launch of Erin's Market Minutes series on LinkedIn, which translated the data into plain advice for leadership teams: Erin's Market Minutes Series, Part 1: Data (January 2026) and Market Minutes: My Q1 2026 Advice To Leaders (January 2026).
How To Use It
Start with the occupational wage view if you are about to approve a salary range, because a band set from last year's data is the quiet reason many searches stall. Then check the city rankings before limiting a search to one metro. The industry pages show where your strongest candidates are being recruited from right now.
Charts in the full report draw on licensed labor market data, including LaborIQ and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics series, curated and annotated by Erin Merker.