February 4, 2026
The Upjohn Institute New Hires Quality Index shows the inflation-adjusted hourly earnings power of people starting new jobs inched up in December 2025, rising to $22.26, the highest point this year. The index remains just below its July 2023 peak. Hiring volume jumped 2.3 percent since September and 1.8 percent over the year. However, it is still down 3.7% below its pre-COVID level. After adjusting for population, hiring rates have been flat over the year and down 8.7% from the pre-COVID level.
In this month’s release, the first since the delayed September report, Index creator Brad Hershbein dives into the hiring dynamics of metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. While the wage indexes for new hires grew at similar rates for both areas after the Great Recession, there has been a divergence more recently. Metropolitan areas have seen faster wage growth as of late, particularly since 2022. In the last year, the metro worker index increased by 1.3%, while that for non-metros saw a decline for much of the year before a turnaround in the past few months provided a modest gain for the year.
Newly hired non-metro workers can expect to make almost exactly what they were earning nine years ago (adjusted for inflation), while workers in metro areas are 5.4% above that measure.
The comparative strength of each type of area’s hiring becomes clearer when we focus on the quantity of hires. While the lack of readings available in October and November prevent the usual creation of a smoothed 12-month average, it is still possible to see that metro areas have experienced a drop in hiring of 4.2% over the past decade while non-metro areas have seen a 13.5% decline during the same time span.
However, when adjusting for the lower population in non-metro areas, many of these differences disappear. Hiring rates for both metro and non-metro areas have been stagnant over the past year and are are down 13% to 16% over the past decade. Thus, the likelihood of getting hired is down everywhere, but new metro jobs are growing faster in earnings power than jobs in more rural areas.
Interactive charts and full data are available at upjohn.org/nhqi.