COVID-19 jobs recovery well below U.S. average in most Illinois metro areas
The nation recovered 85% of the jobs lost to the COVID-19 downturn, but only one metro area in Illinois beat the U.S. average. The Chicago area only recovered 64% of its jobs. Bloomington was one of just 11 U.S. areas to lose jobs last year.
Only one metropolitan area in Illinois has been able to claw back the job losses endured at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and state-mandated lockdowns, according to data recently released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In December 2021, the Carbondale-Marion metro area finally recouped the last of the 7,700 jobs lost from January to April 2020: a recovery 20 months in the making. The Chicago region stood at a 64% recovery.
Nationwide, 85% of job losses have been recouped, but only Carbondale-Marion recovered past that mark. Every other metropolitan area in the state – and Illinois as a whole – remained far off a full employment recovery.
Among the next-most recovered areas of the state are the Danville, Davenport-Moline-Rock Island, Lake County-Kenosha County and Champaign-Urbana metro areas, which all recovered at least 75% of their job losses from early 2020.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Kankakee and Bloomington metropolitan areas barely recovered half of their job losses. Despite consistent jobs growth in virtually all areas of the nation during 2021, the Bloomington metro area actually lost jobs during the year. That makes Bloomington one of only 11 of the nation’s 389 metro areas that saw payrolls decline in 2021.
Utah, Idaho, Texas and Arizona all have already surpassed their pre-pandemic employment levels. As more and more states approach a full payroll recovery, jobs across Illinois are likely to remain below their pre-pandemic level for the better part of a year. The state added 262,600 jobs in 2021, but is still missing 251,900 jobs that existed before COVID-19. Even if Illinois is able to keep adding jobs at the same pace as it did last year, payrolls would not make a full recovery until late 2022.
A full employment recovery in 2022 may even be a long shot. More than one-third of the workers who are still missing from Illinois’ workforce have likely retired. Making matters even worse for Illinois, a record exodus driving population decline threatens to prevent the state’s economy from ever returning to pre-pandemic employment levels.