US hiring and pay report, November 2026: what 16,766 job adverts say

On the morning of November 14, 2026, USA Jobs 24 held 16,766 live openings read directly from the careers sites of 170 large US employers. Two-thirds of those adverts state what the job pays, which makes it possible to say something concrete about pay. This report sets out what the adverts show. It describes big-company hiring, weighted toward technology and finance, and not the whole US job market. The limits are spelled out at the end.

The short version

• 68% of adverts state pay. In states with pay transparency laws it is 75%; elsewhere it is 51%.
• For salaried jobs, the middle advertised figure is about $171,000 a year. For hourly jobs it is $24 an hour.
• Pay rises steeply with experience: about $101,000 at entry level, $156,000 at three to five years, $225,000 at ten years or more.
• 17% of openings are fully remote. In sales it is nearly a third.
• California and New York together hold half of all the openings.

How many adverts state pay

11,471 of the 16,766 openings carry a pay figure or range. State law makes a clear difference. For jobs located only in states with pay transparency laws, such as California, New York, Colorado, Washington and Illinois, 75% of adverts state pay. For jobs located only in states without such a law, the figure is 51%.

The gap shows up state by state. Massachusetts (83%), New York (82%), Illinois (81%), Colorado (79%) and California (78%) are at the top. North Carolina (59%), Texas (61%), Georgia (62%) and Florida (64%) are lower. Even there, more than half of adverts now give a number.

If an advert for a job in a transparency state has no range, it is reasonable to ask the recruiter for one before the first interview.

What the adverts pay

9,776 adverts give a yearly salary. Taking the midpoint of each advertised range, the middle figure is $171,200, and half of all adverts fall between $126,000 and $222,500. About a third (3,416) have a midpoint of $200,000 or more. A further 1,695 adverts give an hourly rate, with a middle figure of $24 an hour and half falling between $20 and $33.

These are high numbers, and they reflect the employers on our list more than the country as a whole. The table shows how much the field matters.

Data and AI roles sit at the top, about $21,000 above software. Finance is lower than many people expect, because the banks on our list advertise many operations and analyst roles alongside the highly paid ones. For sales, the advertised figure is often base pay only, so real earnings with commission are higher.

Experience is the biggest lever

The largest single jump is between two years and the three-to-five band: about $41,000. That is the point where a candidate stops being hired for potential and starts being hired for what they have already done. If you are close to the three-year mark, it can pay to wait a few months and apply as a mid-level candidate.

11,830 adverts state a minimum. Of those, 37% ask for three to five years, 23% for six to nine and 21% for ten or more. Only 9% ask for a year or less.

Where the jobs are, and what they pay there

California has 5,375 openings (32% of the total) and New York 3,000 (18%). Texas follows with 1,860, then Washington (1,385) and Illinois (1,058). By city, New York (2,666) and San Francisco (2,352) are far ahead of Seattle (821), Chicago (696), Austin (690) and Atlanta (626).

The middle advertised salary is $203,000 in California, $195,000 in New York and $194,000 in Washington. In Texas, Colorado, Massachusetts, Georgia and North Carolina it is between $159,000 and $163,000, and in Florida $152,000. A $40,000 gap between California and Texas looks large, but it narrows once state income tax and housing costs are counted. Our take-home pay calculator shows what a salary leaves in each state.

Remote work

2,892 openings (17%) are fully remote and another 2,127 (13%) are hybrid. Remote work is not spread evenly. Software has the most remote roles (756), but sales has the highest share: 500 of its 1,556 openings, nearly a third. Healthcare adds 151.

Remote does not mean lower pay in these adverts. The middle advertised salary for remote roles is $181,000, a little above the overall figure. It does usually mean a list of states you must live in, so read the advert's location section before you apply.

Entry-level jobs

1,705 openings, about one in ten, are open to people with a year of experience or less. 492 of them are internships. Software has the most (352), followed by sales (186), data and AI (148), finance (142) and engineering (132). New York (156) and San Francisco (136) have the most by city.

Where entry-level adverts state a yearly salary, the middle figure is about $101,000, and half fall between $75,000 and $135,000. Again, that reflects the employers on this list. It is a fair guide to what a large technology or finance employer offers a new graduate, and not to starting pay in general.

Skills employers name most

Python is named in 2,594 adverts (15%), ahead of Excel (1,646), generative AI (1,618), AWS (1,467), machine learning (1,444) and SQL (1,392). Salesforce appears in 1,194, mostly in sales roles, where it is in 28% of adverts.

In data and AI roles, Python is in 45% of adverts, machine learning in 36% and generative AI in 35%. Across all fields, generative AI is now named in about one advert in ten.

What this report can and cannot tell you

• It covers 170 large employers. They lean toward technology, finance, AI, healthcare and defense. Small businesses, most hourly work, public-sector jobs and jobs filled through agencies are not in it, which is why the pay figures are well above national averages.
• We do not rank employers by size. For most large employers we list a limited number of their most recent openings, typically up to 150, so the number of jobs we show for a company is not the number it has.
• Pay figures are midpoints of advertised ranges. Ranges can be wide, some cover several locations, and they usually leave out bonuses, stock and commission.
• Jobs are sorted automatically into fields and experience bands from their titles and adverts. Some are sorted wrongly, and 2,277 could not be placed in a field.
• It is one morning's snapshot. We began keeping daily counts on November 1, 2026, and the total has stayed between 16,766 and 17,045 since. We will compare month with month in the next report.

Every figure here comes from the openings listed on USA Jobs 24 on the morning of November 14, 2026. Read how we check every job.