Baseball's championship series ran through Milwaukee and Tampa

Teams from Milwaukee and Tampa slugged it out this week in baseball’s championship series. It was Milwaukee’s first trip to the series since 1982, while Tampa’s last visit was in 2020. Milwaukee clinched the win in five games, taking home their first world championship. Let’s learn more about each of these cities.

We’ll start in Milwaukee, a city on the western shore of Lake Michigan. In September 2026, the unemployment rate was 3.2 percent in the Milwaukee-Waukesha, Wisconsin, metropolitan area. Average weekly earnings in private industry were $1,189.98 and employment was 777,300. In Milwaukee County, home of the team's stadium, employment was highest in food services and drinking places and in hospitals, with each having average industry employment of over 30,000 in 2025. Beverage manufacturing (which includes breweries) had employment of 1,750.

Let’s move south to Tampa, a city on Florida’s Gulf Coast. In September 2026, the greater Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan area had an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent. Private industry employment in the metro area was 1,394,500 and average weekly earnings were $1,272.24. Food services and drinking places, with employment of 41,042, was also the largest industry in Pinellas County, Florida, home of the southern team's stadium. Professional, scientific, and technical services was the only other industry with employment over 30,000 in the county.

Unemployment data are from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program. Metropolitan area employment and earnings data are from the Current Employment Statistics (State and Metro Area) program. County employment data are from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages program. Metropolitan area data are preliminary and not seasonally adjusted. To learn more, see Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment—September 2026. We also have interactive charts of metro area employment and unemployment data.