- The 12-month forecast shows that Illinois is likely to experience an employment increase of 44,700 jobs by December 2019. The greatest increase is likely to occur in Education & health (16,000 more jobs).

- The state of Illinois now has a net gain of 167,000 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: 01/29/2019)

- Illinois added 13,600 jobs in December 2018. The sectors that gained jobs were Trade, transportation and utilities (2,800 more jobs), Leisure & hospitality (4,600 more jobs), Government (6,300 jobs). The sectors that lost jobs in November in Illinois were Information (-1,000 less jobs), Financial Activities (-700) and Construction (-600).

- In December, Illinois’s official unemployment rate was 4.3% while its shadow unemployment rate was 8.99%. To bring the two rates together, in other words bringing down shadow unemployment rate to 4.3%, another 341,600 jobs need to be created.

- The Nation added 222,000 jobs at a rate of 0.15% in December, compared with a revised 196,000-job gain in November 2018. There was growth in three sectors, namely Education & health (67,000 more jobs), Professional & business services (29,000 more jobs), and Trade, transportation and utilities (55,000 more jobs).

- The RMW added 40,700 jobs in December after a 28,400-job gain in November 2018.

- 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: 01/29/2019)

- Illinois Rural area added 10,300 jobs at 1.37% this month, compared to a revised 5,400-job gain in November 2018. At the same time, Metro added 3,300 jobs at 0.06% in December, compared to a revised 2,600-job gain in the previous month. Consequently, the 13,600-job gain in Illinois was mainly driven by increase metro area.

-  The most remarkable upward move in December was recorded for Kankakee (10th to 1st).

- In Chicago, Government had the greatest monthly job-gain among all sectors (3,000 more jobs) in December, while Construction had the greatest decline (1,400 less jobs). Since the job recovery resumed in January 2010 in Illinois, Kankakee has shown an average growth rate of 14.34%, which is the highest among all the IL MSAs; Bloomington-Normal has experienced the lowest average growth rate, -2.45%.

- The 12-month forecasts show that Chicago is likely to experience a 1.03% job gain by December 2019 (43,600 more jobs). The greatest 12-month growth in Chicago is likely to happen for Education & health (15,000 more jobs) but the greatest decline would be for Construction (-2,700).

See the full report (Released: 01/29/2019)

- The Chicago Business Activity Index (CBAI) decreased to 96.8 in December from 99.3 in November. The decrease is mainly attributed to negative construction job growth.

See the full report (Released: 02/15/2019)

- According to the forecast for November 2018, Champaign-Urbana, 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: 02/09/2019)