Illinois’ metro areas already face unemployment problems, with some of the nation’s worst rates. They could be hit harder by a recession than other places in the nation.

The latest job numbers show Illinois continues struggling to recover pandemic job losses, a bad sign for its lagging economy as recession fears rise.

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

Illinois shed 7,900 jobs in May but most of those losses were outside of urban areas.