Illinois’ lagging pandemic recovery continued across its cities in July. Only 1 metropolitan area has recovered from the pandemic.

Only Bloomington has recouped early 2020 job losses, which is bad news for Illinois’ lagging economy as recession fears increase.

Despite a full year of job gains, all Illinois metropolitan areas are missing jobs since the pandemic began and the recovery stalled. While May brought job gains statewide, only eight metro areas saw gains while seven saw losses.

Illinois’ overall job numbers continue to rise, but the recovery is spotty. Over half of the metropolitan areas failed to add jobs in April.

Illinois is steadily adding jobs lost during the COVID-19 economic downturn, but despite 10 months of gains the state recovery lags the nation. Some metropolitan areas are far behind where they were.

Illinois posted job growth of 19,600 in February, with bigger payrolls in 10 of 14 Illinois-based metropolitan 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.

Eight of 13 Illinois-based metro areas lost jobs in April.