- The 12-month forecast shows that Illinois is likely to experience an employment increase of 46,200 jobs by June 2020. The greatest increase is likely to occur in Education & health and Professional & business services (16,000 more jobs).

- The state of Illinois now has a net gain of 208,300 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: 09/10/2019)

- Illinois added 11,400 jobs in June 2019. The sectors that gained jobs were Information (700 more jobs), Leisure & hospitality (4,700 more jobs), Financial activities (1,200 more jobs). The sectors that lost jobs in June in Illinois were Construction (900 less jobs) and Other services (1,000 less jobs).

- In June, Illinois’s official unemployment rate was 4.2% while its shadow unemployment rate was 8.8%. To bring the two rates together, in other words bringing down shadow unemployment rate to 4.2%, another 330,200 jobs need to be created.

- The Nation added 224,000 jobs at a rate of 0.15% in June, compared with a revised 72,000-job gain in May 2019. There was a growth in three sectors, namely Construction (21,000 more jobs), Education & health (61,000 more jobs), and Professional & business services (51,000 more jobs).

- The RMW gained 21,700 jobs in June after a 6,800-job lost in May 2019.

- The 12-month-ahead job recovery forecasts show that the future recovery rates in Illinois will increase for every sector except Information and Trade, transportation & utilities.

See the full report (Released: 09/10/2019)

- Illinois Rural area lost 3,300 jobs at 0.44% this month, compared to a revised 5,200-job loss in May 2019. At the same time, Metro added 14,700 jobs at 0.27% in June, compared to a revised 7,500-job gain in the previous month. Consequently, the 11,400-job gain in Illinois was mainly driven by mixed performances in all areas.

- In Chicago, Leisure & hospitality had the greatest monthly job-gain among all sectors (5,600 more jobs) in June, while Other Services had the greatest decline (1,000 less jobs). Since the job recovery resumed in January 2010 in Illinois, Chicago has shown an average growth rate over the 2010-2019 period of 11.76%, which is the highest among all the IL MSAs; Bloomington-Normal has experienced the lowest average growth rate, -3.24%.

- The 12-month forecasts show that Chicago is likely to experience a 1.13% job gain by June 2020 (48,000 more jobs). The greatest 12-month growth in Chicago is likely to happen for Professional & business services (37,300 more jobs) but the greatest decline would be for Information (-1,300).

See the full report (Released: 09/10/2019)

- The Chicago Business Activity Index (CBAI) increased to 96.6 in July from 91.9 in June. The increase is mainly attributed to positive manufacturing, construction job growth, and an improvement in expected retail sales.

See the full report (Released: 09/16/2019)

- According to the forecast for May 2020, Peoria, Rockford, Springfield and Kankakee are likely to perform better over this period than Chicago. All the other MSAs will fare less well than Chicago.

See the full report (Released: 09/10/2019)