Illinois lost jobs across several industries including construction, manufacturing, and professional and business services. The only employment category to see significant growth was leisure and hospitality.

The industry giant’s move comes amid continued disinvestment in Illinois manufacturing.

There are 170,000 fewer people working in Illinois since before the Great Recession.

Workers’ compensation is a significant cost to Illinois taxpayers and drains scarce tax dollars from government coffers. A previous report in this series estimated the direct cost of workers’ compensation to state, county and municipal governments is $402 million in worker payouts per year.1 Building upon those findings, this report estimates that the total cost of workers’ compensation to...

In the last decade, Illinois’ economy and the economies of neighboring states have gone in opposite directions, with more people now working in Wisconsin and Indiana combined.

The company’s announcement affects 800 hourly employees, though 1,200 workers will remain in Aurora. In January, Caterpillar announced plans to relocate its global headquarters to Chicago and out of its longtime hub in Peoria.

In February 2017 Illinois surpassed its previous jobs peak from September 2000. However, long-term problems could potentially hamstring further jobs growth if left unaddressed.

Newly released Illinois jobs report points to anemic jobs growth and a contracting labor force.

Illinois continues to have the worst jobs growth in the region, and tax hikes will only make matters worse.