Seven of Illinois’ 14 metro areas saw unemployment rates tick higher in September compared with the year before and six were down jobs, most concentrated downstate, according to preliminary data released Thursday by the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
The biggest jump in the unemployment rate happened in the Davenport-Moline-Rock Island metro area on the Iowa border, more commonly known as the Quad Cities, where unemployment rose to 5.9 percent in September from 5.1 percent a year before. It also lost 4,300 jobs over the year, the most of any of the metro areas.
Other parts of the state with sizable job losses and over-the-year increases in unemployment rates include Danville, where the 7.2 percent unemployment rate was the highest in the state; Peoria, where unemployment was 6.4 percent; Carbondale-Marion, 6 percent; and Bloomington, 5.1 percent.
The data is not seasonally adjusted, meaning it doesn’t take into account seasonal fluctuations in the labor market and can’t be compared month-to-month. The unemployment rate measures people who are not working and are looking for work, so it doesn’t count people who stopped looking or are underemployed in part-time jobs when they want full-time.
The metro areas posting the greatest job growth are concentrated in the northeastern part of the state. Rockford, which added 2,600 jobs over the year, saw the greatest positive change, and its unemployment rate ticked down slightly to 6.6 percent.
The Chicago metro area has added nearly 50,000 jobs, including 3,700 in the Elgin metropolitan division, where the unemployment rate is 5.2 percent, and 5,800 in the Lake-Kenosha counties metro division, where unemployment is 4.8 percent.
There were some differences in the kinds of jobs added in different parts of the Chicago metro area, which is further divided into three metro divisions. In the Elgin division, professional-business services, construction, retail trade and educational and health services had the largest payroll gains while wholesale trade and manufacturing saw declines.
In the Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights metro division, which had 40,300 more jobs in September than a year before and reported a 5.2 percent unemployment rate, the biggest gains were in professional-business services, leisure-hospitality and educational and health services. Manufacturing lost 4,800 jobs there over the year, the most of any industry category, followed by financial activities and transportation-warehousing-utilities.
The education and health services sector has been growing in most of the metro areas.
Yet “the state is still experiencing not nearly enough growth,” Employment Security Director Jeff Mays said in a news release.
The city of Chicago’s unemployment rate was 5.9 percent in September, up slightly from 5.8 percent a year earlier.
aelejalderuiz@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @alexiaer
