Labor Force Drops for Third Straight Month

Lawndale News Chicago's Bilingual Newspaper - Business

The Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) announced that the unemployment rate in July decreased 0.4 percentage points to 5.8 percent and nonfarm payrolls increased by +11,600 jobs, based on preliminary data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and IDES. The decrease in Illinois’ unemployment rate is largely due to a decline in the labor force. Job growth is still below the national average, with Illinois -41,200 jobs short of its peak employment level reached in September 2000. “We’ve seen growth in labor force participation over the last year, but over the last three months we’ve given too much of it back,” said IDES Director Jeff Mays.

Lawndale News Chicago's Bilingual Newspaper - Business

In July, the three industry sectors with the largest gains in employment were: Education and Health Services (+5,400); Other Services (+4,200); and Leisure and Hospitality (+2,100). The two industry sectors with the largest declines in employment were: Construction (-2,700) and Financial Activities (-1,000). Over the year, nonfarm payroll employment increased by +43,200 jobs with the largest gains in Leisure and Hospitality (+18,900); and Professional and Business Services (+13,800). The state’s unemployment rate is higher than the national unemployment rate reported for July 2016, which held at 4.9 percent. The Illinois unemployment rate remains the same as a year ago when it was also 5.8 percent. The unemployment rate declined for the third consecutive month in July, as did the labor force and the number of people unemployed. To help connect jobseekers to employers who are hiring, IDES’ maintains the state’s largest job search engine IllinoisJoblink.com (IJL). IJL recently showed that that 59,700 resumes were posted and 177,416 help wanted ads were available.

Comments are closed.