No official series measures unmet demand for a skill. The observable proxy is a metro median well above the national median for the same occupation, particularly where local concentration is not high — that combination suggests employers paying up to attract people rather than benefiting from a deep local pool. Anchorage pays petroleum engineers a median of $212,240, the highest of any metro holding them.
Nobody publishes a shortage
There is no series measuring unmet demand for a skill. Employers say “shortage” when they cannot hire at the price they budgeted, when the pool genuinely is thin, and when they are asking for a combination nobody has — and all three feel identical from inside the company.
Only one of those is a shortage in any economic sense, and it resolves itself when the budget moves. So the useful question is not who is claiming a shortage but where the pay has already responded to one.
The signal that works: a premium without a pool
Compare a metro’s median for your occupation against the national median. A large premium means employers there are paying up for something. Then check the concentration.
A premium in a place with a deep pool usually means a high-value local industry paying its people well — that is San Jose for software. A premium in a place with a thin pool is much closer to genuine scarcity: the employer is paying to get somebody there at all.
Anchorage pays petroleum engineers a median of $212,240 against a national $144,910 — a 46 per cent premium — with about 200 of them in the whole metro. Compare Houston, which pays $169,870 with 4,770 of them. The Houston premium is industry. The Anchorage premium includes the cost of persuading somebody to move to Anchorage.
The second signal: a stretched local distribution
Where employers are competing hard for experienced people, the top of the local range pulls away while entry pay barely moves. A metro with an unusually wide gap between its tenth and ninetieth percentile for your occupation is telling you that experience is scarce there, even if the median looks ordinary.
That is also the most actionable version of this, because it says the premium is available to you specifically rather than to anyone who shows up.
The trap in the other direction
Low local pay does not mean low demand. It can mean abundant supply, a low local cost base, or simply an occupation that is cheap everywhere. The comparison that means something is your occupation in that metro against your occupation nationally — never against other occupations in the same metro, which mostly measures the metro.
What employers mean when they say it
Usually that the role has been open a long time at the salary they approved. That is a real constraint for them and it is a budgeting problem, not a market one. It is worth knowing because it is also an opening: a long-vacant role is a role where the budget is more likely to move than the requirements.
Where a genuine shortage exists, pay has usually already moved and you can see it in the published figures before anybody says the word.
Using this to pick where to look
Look for three things together: a metro median meaningfully above national for your occupation, a concentration that is not already very high, and a wide local spread. That combination is where an experienced person has the most leverage, and all three numbers are published for every occupation in 393 metros.
It will point you somewhere unexpected more often than not, because the obvious destinations are obvious to everyone and their pools are correspondingly deep.
A worked example, start to finish
Say you are an experienced petroleum engineer deciding where to look. The national median is $144,910. Houston pays $169,870 and holds 4,770 of you. Midland pays $172,070 with 940. Anchorage pays $212,240 with about 200.
Houston is the deep market: highest employment, a real premium, and dozens of employers. If the job ends you interview across town. Midland pays marginally more with a fifth of the people — the premium there is concentration in a small place, and the market is genuinely specialized rather than merely present.
Anchorage pays 46 per cent above national to a couple of hundred people. That is not a deep market paying well; that is a small number of employers paying whatever it takes to get somebody to move there. Excellent money, almost no alternative employer, and a housing market attached to the same industry.
All three are defensible choices. They are not the same choice, and the raw salary ranks them in exactly the wrong order for anybody who values being able to leave.
When the scarcity is you rather than the place
The most valuable version of this is not geographic at all. If your combination of skills is genuinely uncommon, the shortage travels with you and the question becomes which employers feel it most acutely — usually the ones whose postings for your role have been open longest.
That is findable: watch the same employer’s listings over a couple of months and note which roles keep reappearing. A role posted continuously for a quarter is a role where somebody is getting impatient, and impatience is the condition under which budgets move.
Common questions
Is there a published measure of skills shortage?
No. Nobody publishes unmet demand, so pay is the closest observable proxy for it.
What does high local pay indicate?
That employers are paying up. Combined with low local concentration it points to genuine scarcity rather than a high-value industry.
What else signals scarcity?
A wide local gap between the tenth and ninetieth percentile, where competition for experienced people pulls the top away.
What do employers usually mean by shortage?
Often that they cannot hire at the price they budgeted, which resolves when the budget moves rather than being a shortage.
Does low local pay mean low demand?
Not necessarily. It can mean abundant supply or a low cost base. Compare against the same occupation nationally, not other occupations locally.
How can I spot a genuine skills shortage?
A metro median well above national for your occupation, combined with LOW local concentration. High pay with a deep pool is usually a rich industry, not scarcity.
What do employers usually mean by shortage?
That a role has stayed open at the salary they approved. That is a budgeting constraint rather than a market one — and it means the budget is more likely to move than the requirements.