- The 12-month forecast shows that Illinois is likely to experience an employment increase of 46,700 jobs by February 2020. The greatest increase is likely to occur in Professional & business services (19,700 more jobs).

- The state of Illinois now has a net gain of 180,500 jobs since the beginning of the recession in December 2007. Given Illinois’ economic performance of late, recovery to the prior peak (adjusted for changes in labor force participation and population growth) recorded in 2000 within five years would seem feasible.

See the full report (Released: 05/07/2019)

- Illinois lost 12,600 jobs in February 2019. The sectors that gained jobs were Professional & business services (3,800 more jobs) and Government (100 more jobs). The sectors that lost jobs in Illinois were Construction (-5,300 less jobs), Trade, transportation and utilities (-4,400) and Leisure & hospitality (-4,200).

- In January, Illinois’s official unemployment rate was 4.3% while its shadow unemployment rate was 9.2%. To bring the two rates together, in other words bringing down shadow unemployment rate to 4.3%, another 352,200 jobs need to be created.

- The Nation added 20,000 jobs at a rate of 0.01% in February, compared with a revised 311,000-job gain in January 2019. There was growth in four sectors, namely Education & health (4,000 more jobs), Financial Activities (6,000 more jobs), Professional & business services (42,000 more jobs) and Manufacturing (4,000 more jobs).

- The RMW lost 8,800 jobs in February after an 51,000-job gain in January 2019.

- The 12-month-ahead job recovery forecasts show that the future recovery rates in Illinois will increase for every sector except Information.

See the full report (Released: 05/08/2019)

- Illinois Rural area lost 7,600 jobs at -1.0% this month, compared to a revised 800-job loss in January 2019. At the same time, Metro loss 5,000 jobs at -0.09% in February, compared to a revised 27,500-job gain in the previous month. Consequently, the 12,600-job loss in Illinois was driven by decreases in both metro and rural areas.

- In Chicago, Trade, Education and health had the greatest monthly job-gain among all sectors (3,100 more jobs) in February, while Leisure and hospitality had the greatest decline (5,500 less jobs). Since the job recovery resumed in January 2010 in Illinois, Chicago has shown an average growth rate of 11.65%, which is the highest among all the IL MSAs; Bloomington-Normal has experienced the lowest average growth rate, -3.67%.

- The 12-month forecasts show that Chicago is likely to experience a 1.87% job gain by February 2020 (79,500 more jobs). The greatest 12-month growth in Chicago is likely to happen for Trade, transportation and utilities (26,300 more jobs) but the greatest decline would be for Information (-4,000).

See the full report (Released: 05/08/2019)

- The Chicago Business Activity Index (CBAI) increased to 98.1 in February from 95.2 in January. The increase is mainly attributed to positive manufacturing job growth and an improvement in retail sales.

See the full report (Released: 04/16/2019)

- According to the forecast for January 2020, Bloomington-Normal, Rockford and Kankakee are likely to perform Better over this period than Chicago. All the other MSAs will compare worse to Chicago.

See the full report (Released: 05/08/2019)