Nov. 25--Illinois added 14,000 jobs in October, but gains in the Chicago area over the last year were not being mirrored downstate, data released Wednesday by the state show.
The seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate in the Chicago area was 5 percent in October, slightly below the 5.3 percent jobless rate for the state as a whole, the Illinois Department of Employment Security said Wednesday. A year ago, the unemployment rate for the Chicago area was 6.1 percent.
While the Chicago area has added 49,600 jobs over the last year -- 14,000 of them in the last month -- the rest of the state lost 8,500 jobs over the same period.
Jobs were lost in seven metro areas: the Quad Cities, Carbondale-Marion, Decatur, Peoria, Rockford, the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis, and in Lake and Kenosha counties.
"We are thankful for every single job we have gained since the national recovery began in July 2009," Illinois Department of Employment Security Director Jeff Mays said in a news release. "However, at Thanksgiving 2015, too few Illinois residents are feeling this turnaround."
At the peak of the recession in January 2010, Illinois' unemployment rate hit 12.2 percent.
Nationally, the jobless rate remained unchanged in October at 5 percent, down 0.7 percent from one year earlier, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
