Bakers job market in Indiana

Industry trends, wages and hiring signals.

Data availability

Published industry context is limited

The report below shows the available evidence. Missing figures are not estimated.

Limited published dataCitation

Occupation pay

What Bakers earn in Indiana

BLS OEWS occupation-level pay estimates for this role — separate from the industry wage trends used elsewhere in this report.

BLS OEWS source

Median annual wage

$36,150Indiana
Middle 50% of published wages
$28,790 – $41,360
U.S. median annual wage
$37,160
Reference period
May 2025

The middle 50% is the 25th-to-75th percentile wage range, not an experience-level band. Suppressed or unavailable BLS values remain unpublished rather than being estimated.

Pay around Indiana

How median pay varies by metro area

Published BLS OEWS metro estimates for Bakers, compared with the Indiana median of $36,150.

Indiana median$36,150
Michigan City-La Porte, IN$39,840+10.2% vs. state
Middle 50%$31,060 – $44,740Published employment100
Elkhart-Goshen, IN$37,300+3.2% vs. state
Middle 50%$32,220 – $49,130Published employment170
Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN$37,230+3.0% vs. state
Middle 50%$35,910 – $45,100Published employment9,920
Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood, IN$36,870+2.0% vs. state
Middle 50%$31,350 – $42,480Published employment1,140
Evansville, IN$36,490+0.9% vs. state
Middle 50%$31,310 – $42,480Published employment160
Louisville/Jefferson County, KY-IN$36,430+0.8% vs. state
Middle 50%$29,910 – $45,320Published employment610
View 8 more published metro areas
South Bend-Mishawaka, IN-MI$36,410+0.7% vs. state
Middle 50%$27,700 – $41,910Published employment250
Fort Wayne, IN$36,280+0.4% vs. state
Middle 50%$30,100 – $44,890Published employment180
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN$35,970−0.5% vs. state
Middle 50%$29,390 – $38,020Published employment1,430
Bloomington, IN$35,900−0.7% vs. state
Middle 50%$30,150 – $37,620Published employment70
Columbus, IN$35,700−1.2% vs. state
Middle 50%$34,520 – $37,790Published employment40
Kokomo, IN$34,640−4.2% vs. state
Middle 50%$30,160 – $39,980Published employment40
Terre Haute, IN$34,090−5.7% vs. state
Middle 50%$26,470 – $36,090Published employment40
Lafayette-West Lafayette, IN$33,830−6.4% vs. state
Middle 50%$27,920 – $36,250Published employment120

Areas are ordered by published median wage for readability, not as an overall job-market ranking. The vertical marker is the Indiana median. Some BLS metropolitan areas cross state lines, so a metro estimate can cover workers in more than one state.

Limited local data: at least one local trend covers only 66.57% of this occupation's industry mix. These figures describe the industries with published data. Read each trend alongside its state data coverage.

Local research

What the data shows for bakers in Indiana

Findings describe the published observation periods shown below. Research published Oct 10, 2026.

The highest-paying metro has a smaller employment market

Median annual pay of $39,840 puts Michigan City-La Porte, IN at the top of the published pay estimates for Indiana-associated metros with usable employment figures in OEWS May 2025. Its employment estimate is 100. The largest employment market, Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood, IN, has 1,140 estimated jobs and median pay of $36,870. The comparison covers 11 metros, and the highest-paying metro's median is 8.1% higher than the largest market's. Market size describes existing jobs, not available vacancies.

OEWS May 2025 · BLS OEWS

Some metro estimates cross state lines. Higher nominal pay does not establish better living standards or better chances of finding a job.

This occupation is less concentrated in the state

Using the national share of employment as the benchmark, bakers have a published location quotient of 0.74 in Indiana in OEWS May 2025. Their state employment share is 0.74 times the national share. The state estimate is 3,600 jobs, 1.5% of the national employment estimate for this occupation. It represents 1.13 jobs per thousand jobs in the state's OEWS employment universe. The comparison describes where existing employment is concentrated, not current hiring or future growth.

OEWS May 2025 · BLS OEWS

OEWS employment estimates describe covered wage-and-salary jobs and exclude self-employed workers; location quotients do not measure vacancies or worker demand.

Findings describe published data and do not establish causes. Methodology

Current market signals

Recent statewide layoff-notice context alongside the published BLS figures below. This signal does not feed the Job Market Health score.

Statewide layoff-notice filings

Indiana statewide

7 notices in this source

Notice dates from Aug 5, 2026 to Nov 2, 2026 (UTC), a rolling 90-calendar-day period.

What this means: These are statewide totals from notices dated in this period in Indiana’s official tracking system. Reported positions are the counts published in those notices, not a count of people confirmed to have lost their jobs. No employer is identified.

Notices describe planned workforce changes, not confirmed job losses. Notices may be amended or withdrawn. This statewide context is not occupation-specific and does not affect the Job Market Health score. Indiana’s state tracking system also records smaller Rapid Response events that fall below federal WARN thresholds, so it is not a list of federal WARN filings only.

Indiana Department of Workforce Development About WARN data

Source last checked

Indeed job postings · Indiana

Recent hiring-demand context · separate from the health score

96.0Postings index · February 1, 2020 = 100Observation: Oct 23, 2026
-4.0%Versus the February 2020 baseline
+0.2%Change over about four weeksSep 25, 2026 to Oct 23, 2026

This is statewide demand across all occupations, not demand for this specific job. Postings are not a count of vacancies or hires, and Indeed does not cover the entire labor market.

Source: Indeed Hiring Lab · CC BY 4.0. Seven-day average, seasonally adjusted; publisher refreshes weekly and may revise history. Retrieved Nov 1, 2026 · saved source copy. JobMarketHealth calculates the displayed changes and samples weekly observations for the chart.

Explore states and career fields · Methodology and limits

-0.4%Industry employmentU.S. -0.5%State data coverage: 66.57%
0.0%EstablishmentsU.S. +1.2%State data coverage: 66.57%
+11.6%Avg. weekly industry wageU.S. +3.9%State data coverage: 100%
70,701Represented establishmentsEstablishments in the industries that employ this occupation, not employers hiring itIndustry mix share 98.8%, separate from the data coverage on the trend cards

Industry employment change over time

Year-over-year change for the industries that employ Bakers in Indiana · percentage change

Year-over-year employment change (%) by reference quarter

Latest published values
  • Indiana · 2026 Q1Not published

The chart will load automatically. Published values remain available in this report.

Every published quarter

BLS does not publish a national quarterly series for this occupation’s industry mix, so only the Indiana series is shown. The U.S. figure on the cards above is the latest quarter benchmark.

Quarterly year-over-year industry employment change for Bakers in Indiana, with the published state data coverage for each quarter
QuarterIndianaState data coverage
2024 Q2-0.3%100%
2024 Q3-0.5%100%
2024 Q4-0.6%100%
2025 Q1-0.6%100%
2025 Q2-0.5%100%
2025 Q3-0.5%100%
2025 Q4-0.2%100%
2026 Q1-0.4% Below coverage floor66.57%

Industry mix behind this view

Which industries are weighted into this view. Not a ranking of employers or of job quality.

Industries weighted into the local context for Bakers in Indiana
Industry groupShare of occupation employmentLocal employment changeEstablishmentsAvg. weekly wage
Manufacturing34.5%-0.8%9,510$1,919
Trade, transportation, and utilities32.7%Not published43,609$1,163
Leisure and hospitality29.4%0.0%17,582$521
Private education and health services0.8%+0.5%21,662$1,250
State and local0.2%-0.5%3,854$1,126
Professional and business services0.1%+1.1%41,649$1,567
QCEW release
QCEW 2026 Q1
Data period
January to March 2026
BLS publication date
August 28, 2026
Source verification
Verified September 17, 2026
Industry mix vintage
EP-2025-2035

The publication date above is the official BLS news release date for this reference quarter, linked to the notice. The values match the snapshot independently checked against BLS sources on September 17, 2026. The publication date identifies the quarterly news release, not the exact revision date. The data period above is the quarter the figures describe.

QCEW describes the industries that employ this occupation, not the occupation itself. It is not a count of job openings and is not part of the 0-100 Job Market Health score.

Evidence record

Derived by JobMarketHealth from BLS QCEW + published occupation industry mix. This is occupation-weighted industry context, not direct occupation employment and not a count of current job openings.

Occupation
Bakers
SOC code
51-3011
State
Indiana
QCEW release label
QCEW 2026 Q1
Data period
2026 Q1
State industry employment, year over year
-0.4%State data coverage 66.57%
U.S. benchmark, year over year
-0.5%
Difference from U.S. benchmark
+0.1 percentage pointsPercentage-point gaps use the original published values and are rounded once; subtracting the rounded percentages can give a slightly different result.
Establishments, year over year
0.0%State data coverage 66.57%
Average weekly industry wage, year over year
+11.6%State data coverage 100%
Industry mix vintage
EP-2025-2035
BLS publication date
Aug 28, 2026
Source verification
Verified against the committed source snapshotVerified Sep 17, 2026
Canonical record URL
https://jobmarkethealth.com/occupations/bakers/indiana#evidence-record
Derived by
JobMarketHealth from BLS QCEW + published occupation industry mix

AI & this occupation

How AI relates to Bakers work

Across 4 research exposure measures, Bakers is in the middle technical AI exposure band based on the mean of the available source-specific percentile ranks. Exposure describes how much of the work the studied AI capabilities could technically assist with; it is not a forecast of job loss.

The saved Anthropic task-exposure benchmark records a zero index for this occupation. This is not proof of no AI use; the observation window is not recorded in this saved release.

JobMarketHealth has not measured an AI effect on this occupation's employment or wages, and these figures do not enter its scores; there is no clear evidence of displacement in the data shown here.

Technical AI exposureMiddle exposureMean of 4 available source-specific percentile ranks (4 measures checked); fixed exposure bands, not a national rank of the composite
Dated Claude task exposureLower thirdObserved task-exposure benchmark 0.000; observation window not recorded
Business AI use (BTOS Core)24.6%U.S. businesses using AI, two weeks ending 2026-10-04; all industries, not this occupation
Historical task mix (2025)Not enough tasksFewer than 3 observed tasks
Measured labor-market effectNot estimatedJobMarketHealth does not attribute employment or wage changes to AI

Exposure measures (kept separate)

  • GPTs are GPTs exposure (β, GPT-4 rated): 0.26 of 1, national percentile 43 (middle third)
  • Microsoft AI applicability: 0.09 of 1, national percentile 30 (lower third)
  • AIOE (Felten, Raj & Seamans): -0.39 (standardized), national percentile 41 (middle third)
  • OECD AI Capability Gap (lower gap = higher potential exposure): gap 1.3 of 23, national percentile 83 (higher third)
OECD capability gap by domain

As published by the OECD: the gap between what the occupation demands (0-5) and current AI capability in each domain. A lower gap means AI is closer to the requirement (higher potential exposure); 0 means AI already meets it or the domain is not relevant.

  • Language: gap 0.00 (demand 1.85 of 5)
  • Social interaction: gap 0.00 (demand 1.60 of 5)
  • Problem solving: gap 0.00 (demand 2.00 of 5)
  • Creativity: gap 0.00 (demand 2.10 of 5)
  • Metacognition & critical thinking: gap 0.00 (demand 2.00 of 5)
  • Knowledge, learning & memory: gap 0.00 (demand 2.35 of 5)
  • Vision: gap 0.20 (demand 3.20 of 5)
  • Manipulation: gap 1.40 (demand 3.40 of 5)
  • Robotic intelligence: gap 0.80 (demand 2.80 of 5)

National context: what businesses used generative AI for

From the Census 2025-26 BTOS AI Supplement (all industries; businesses whose employees used generative AI). Census did not measure Bakers specifically.

  • Writing or editing documents, emails, or communications: 85.4%
  • Searching for information or technical help: 49.9%
  • Interpreting, analyzing, translating, or summarizing documents: 44.6%
  • Information processing, paperwork, or filing: 34.7%

Indiana context

In the Census BTOS core AI-use question, an estimated 20.5% of Indiana employer businesses reported using AI in the two weeks ending 2026-10-04 (U.S.: 24.6%).

Separately, the one-time 2025-26 BTOS AI Supplement (collected 2025-11-17 to 2026-02-08) found 18.0% of Indiana businesses using AI at that time, and 19.3% reporting that employees used generative AI for work tasks in the prior six months. It describes how AI was being used then, not a trend.

Using each occupation's exposure band and Indiana employment weights (OEWS May 2025), 26.0% of covered jobs are in occupations in the higher-exposure band. This describes the state's occupation mix, not a measured AI effect.

Exposure and observed usage are separate measures and neither equals job loss. Census BTOS figures are business-level surveys and are not occupation-specific. Sources: GPTs are GPTs occupation exposure; Microsoft Working with AI: AI applicability; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE); OECD AI Exposure Measure (AI Capability Gap); Anthropic Economic Index; Census BTOS Core AI Use; Census BTOS AI Supplement 2025-26. These figures do not affect Job Market Health scores. Explore AI & Jobs · How we use AI data.

How to read this page

QCEW measures employment and wages by industry, not by occupation. We weight those industry conditions using the published industry mix for Bakers. These figures describe the industries that employ Bakers; they are not direct counts of people working in the occupation or of jobs currently open. This page is not part of the national 0 to 100 Job Market Health score.

Source: BLS QCEW. See the methodology, the national Bakers report and about the data.

Compare Indiana with other statesPublished industry employment, business locations and average weekly industry wages for up to three states, with the national benchmark in percentage points.

Bakers in other states

Choose another state below to explore its available industry context.