A summary is below. More details are available on our State Employment Page.

January 22, 2019

Summary

• Illinois added 13,600 jobs and the unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percentage point to 4.3 percent in December according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data.

• Over the past twelve months, Illinois added 71,000 jobs and the unemployment rate fell by 0.6 percentage point from 4.9 percent.

• In December, Illinois's private sector added 7,300 jobs and over the past twelve months, it created 46,300 jobs.

• The number of unemployed Illinoisans rose by 3,695 in December, and over the past year, 41,080 Illinoisans found jobs.

• Illinois’s labor force participation rate remains unchanged from 64.7 percent in December.  Since last year, the labor force participation rate rose 0.1 percentage point.

• The national unemployment rate rose by 0.2 percentage point to 3.9 percent in December.  State employment and unemployment data for January is scheduled for release on March 11, 2019.  The national employment situation report for January will be released on Friday, February 1, 2019.