(The Center Square) – A look at the most recent employment data for Illinois regions shows some areas are outperforming others when it comes to getting residents employed.
Numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show the national average unemployment rate is 3.8% for August. That’s up 0.3% from the month before. At the sixth highest of all states and the District of Columbia, Illinois’ unemployment rate is 4%. Some regions in Illinois are doing better than others.
According to BLS, outside the Cape Girardeau, MO-IL region sitting at 3.3% and the St. Louis, MO-IL region sitting at 3.6%, the Chicago area has the lowest regional unemployment rate of 4.2%. The Carbondale/Marion area is at 5.1% and Rockford is at 6.8%.
The northern township of Zion has a rate of 7.6%, but according to Mayor Billy Mckinney, the township has recently added several hundred new jobs.
“One of the biggest things that has happened within the last year has been our deal with the real estate company Imperien,” McKinney told The Center Square. “It’s one of the largest, if not the largest, real estate deals in Zion in many years and perhaps in the entire Chicagoland area.”
Illinois and Chicago have struggled to keep businesses in the state over the past couple of years as Guggenheim, Boeing, Tyson, Caterpillar and Citadel, among others, have decided to move their corporate offices out of the state.
McKinney said Zion has struggled ever since the state decided to close one of its biggest employers.
“Needless to say, this has been important for us to bring these new businesses in because our tax base was decimated by the loss of the nuclear plant, which was closed in 1998,” McKinney said.
The jobs coming to Zion are a change for the state as recent unemployment numbers have shown Illinois has struggled more than other states to keep jobs.
The industries hit the hardest in Illinois during June were the professional and business services sector, which lost 5,400 jobs. The manufacturing industry lost 2,100 jobs, and the trade, transportation and utilities sector lost 2,000 jobs in the month.
