Figures from the Department of Employment Security report that Illinois’ unemployment rate held steady at 5.3% in October. The national unemployment rate is 4.2%.
While the state has 6,142,400 non-agricultural workers who are presently employed in Illinois, payroll growth in the state has flattened out to zero. Once again, some sectors of the economy were up and some others were down. Those sectors gaining jobs included health care (up by 30,400) and government (up by 22,300). Some of those sectors which shed jobs in October were professional and business services (down by 18,400) and financial services (lost 8000).
Highest unemployment in Illinois is concentrated in areas of the state which are reliant on manufacturing, such as Danville, which led Illinois with a 6.2% unemployment rate, Decatur at 5.8% and Rockford, which came in at 5.4%.
The 5.3% unemployment rate in Illinois is an increase of half a percentage point from one year ago, when unemployment stood at 4.8%.