The stock market might not be so great right now, but the jobs news in Illinois remains good.

The biggest news from the Illinois Department of Employment Security is that Illinois payrolls are up year-over-year in most industries.

IDES announced Thursday (Dec. 20, 2018) that the unemployment rate remained at 4.2 percent in November and nonfarm payrolls increased by 5,900 jobs over-the-month, based on preliminary data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and released by IDES.

Job growth was moderate during the September to November period, posting an average monthly change of 4,800 jobs, an improvement over the prior month when the three-month average change was plus-1,800 jobs.

“Nonfarm payrolls were up over-the-month led by gains in professional and business services and educational and health services jobs “said IDES Director Jeff Mays. “The unemployment rate was unchanged in November, but lower than it was a year ago.”

“We are continuing to see the positive impact of the effort to grow jobs in Illinois,” said Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity Acting Director Leslie Munger. “Pro-growth initiatives and more effective marketing of Illinois’ assets are resulting in a lower unemployment rate and a growing manufacturing base.”

In November, the three industry sectors with the largest over-the-month gains in employment were: Professional and Business Services (+4,100), Educational and Health Services (+2,700) and Trade, Transportation and Utilities (+1,000).

The industry sectors with payroll declines were: Information (-1,600), Construction (-800) and Manufacturing (-800).

Over-the-year, nonfarm payroll employment increased by 54,600 jobs with the largest gains in these industry sectors in November: Government (+14,800); Manufacturing (+10,300); and Education and Health Services (+8,300).

The industry sectors with over-the-year declines were: Information (-3,300) and Other Services (-600). Illinois nonfarm payrolls were up +0.9 percent over-the-year in sharp contrast to the nation’s +1.7 percent over-the-year gain in November.

The state’s unemployment rate is 0.5 percentage points higher than the national unemployment rate reported for November 2018, which held at 3.7 percent. The Illinois unemployment rate is down 0.7 percentage points from a year ago when it was 4.9 percent.

The number of unemployed workers increased 1.4 percent from the prior month to 273,800, down 14.0 percent over the same month for the prior year. The labor force increased 0.2 percent over-the-month but was about unchanged over-the-year.

The unemployment rate identifies those individuals who are out of work and are seeking employment.

An individual who exhausts or is ineligible for benefits is still reflected in the unemployment rate if they actively seek work.

To help connect jobseekers to employers who are hiring, IDES’ maintains the state’s largest job search engine, IllinoisJoblink.com (IJL), which recently showed 41,669 posted resumes with 94,286 jobs available.

About IDES

IDES encourages employment by connecting employers to jobseekers, provides unemployment insurance benefits to eligible individuals, produces labor market data and protects taxpayers from unemployment insurance fraud. Visit the Department’s website at www.ides.illinois.gov for more information. You can also follow IDES on Twitter and Facebook.