Illinois August unemployment rate remains stalled at 9.2%
Tomorrow, Illinois is likely to celebrate its six-month anniversary of having the second-highest unemployment rate in the nation. That’s when the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, releases its Regional and State Employment and Unemployment report for August. In the meantime, the Illinois Department of Employment Security, or IDES, pre-released some of the BLS data...
Tomorrow, Illinois is likely to celebrate its six-month anniversary of having the second-highest unemployment rate in the nation. That’s when the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, releases its Regional and State Employment and Unemployment report for August.
In the meantime, the Illinois Department of Employment Security, or IDES, pre-released some of the BLS data today, detailing yet another month of stalled unemployment numbers.
IDES reported that the Illinois unemployment rate remained at 9.2 percent in August. The state’s unemployment rate is still 1.9 percentage points above the national average, which fell to 7.3 percent in August from 7.4 percent in July.
With 602,000 workers still unemployed, this is the third month in a row the number of unemployed Illinoisans has remained higher than 600,000.
Payroll job growth across Illinois remains poor, with only a few business sectors seeing any real improvement. In the private sector, educational and health services saw the largest gain, with 5,600 jobs added, while construction lost the most, with 4,100 jobs lost. In all, the private sector added 5,900 net jobs.
Government continued to shed jobs, with 1,100 jobs lost.
Overall, August was a disappointing month for job creation. With only 4,800 net jobs being added, August was the lowest job-creating month since April.
Illinois has added only 55,400 payroll jobs in the last 12 months, lagging far behind the job growth it needs to restore payroll jobs to pre-recession levels. At this rate of annual job creation, it will take more than three years for Illinois to reach the number of jobs it had back in August 2007.