The Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) announced Friday that the unemployment rate fell four-tenths of a percent to 5.3 percent, while nonfarm payrolls increased by 22,800 in December, based on preliminary data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
In December, the three industry sectors with the largest over-the-month gains in employment were: Professional and Business Services (+9,400), Trade, Transportation and Utilities (+8,500), and Leisure and Hospitality (+2,200). The industry sectors that reported monthly payroll declines were: Financial Activities (-1,800), Educational and Health Services (-300), and Government (-100).
“Today’s data reflects continued encouraging growth across Illinois’ economy,” said Deputy Governor Andy Manar. “Illinois will continue to take collaborative steps to strengthen our workforce and connect workers with employers across the state. IDES encourages job seekers and businesses to utilize tools such as IllinoisJobLink.com, Illinois’ free and accessible job board with over 160,000 available jobs.”
The state’s unemployment rate was 1.4 percentage points higher than the national unemployment rate reported for December. The Illinois unemployment rate was down 2.7 percentage points from a year ago when it was at 8.0 percent.
Compared to a year ago, nonfarm payroll employment increased by +262,600 jobs, with gains across nearly all major industries. The industry groups with the largest jobs increases were: Leisure and Hospitality (+126,000), Trade, Transportation and Utilities (+48,300), and Professional and Business Services (+28,600). Financial Activities (-5,000) was the only industry group that reported jobs losses.
The number of unemployed workers was down 6.0 percent from December of last year to 333,100.
In May 2020, Governor Pritzker launched Get Hired Illinois, a new one-stop-shop website to help connect job seekers with hiring employers in real-time. The site features virtual job fairs, no-cost virtual training, and includes IllinoisJobLink.com (IJL), the state’s largest job search engine, which recently showed 48,315 posted resumes with 161,281 available jobs.
