For the first time in a long time, the headline news isn’t so good in the most recent jobs report by the lllinois Department of Employment Security.

The report, issued Thursday (April 18, 2019), shows unemployment up slightly. The unemployment rate was 4.4 percent in March, up 0.1 percentage point from the prior month, and nonfarm payrolls were down 2,800 jobs over-the-month based on preliminary data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and released by IDES.

The February jobs loss was revised downward from the preliminary report — from  minus 12,600 to minus 10,800 jobs.

The state’s unemployment rate is 0.6 percentage points higher than the national unemployment rate reported for March  2019, which remained at 3.8 percent. The Illinois unemployment rate is up 0.1 percentage point from a year ago, when it was 4.3 percent.

The number of unemployed workers increased 1.1 percent from the prior month, to 284,400,  and was up 1.3 percent over the same month for the prior year.

The labor force was about unchanged over-the-month but was up 0.1 percentage point over-the-year. The unemployment rate identifies those individuals who are out of work and are seeking employment.

The Good News

Average payroll employment growth during the January to March three-month period was up 4,400 jobs, with the largest gains in Manufacturing (+1,700), Professional and Business Services (+1,300) and Educational and Health Services (+1,100).

“This administration has begun the hard work of restoring fiscal sanity to our state so that we can build a thriving economy for all Illinoisans,” said Deputy Gov. Dan Hynes.

In March, the industry sectors with the largest over-the-month gains in employment were: Manufacturing (+1,400), Financial Activities (+1,400), Leisure and Hospitality (+1,200) and Other Services (+1,200). The industry sectors with the largest payroll declines were: Professional and Business Services (-4,200), Trade, Transportation and Utilities (-3,000) and Construction (-1,600).

Over-the-year, nonfarm payroll employment increased by 47,400 jobs with the largest gains in these industry sectors in March: Education and Health Services (+14,000), Manufacturing (+9,000), and Professional and Business Services (+8,400). The industry sectors with over-the-year declines were: Construction (-4,700), Information (-2,900) and Mining (-200).

Illinois nonfarm payrolls were up +0.8 percent over-the-year as compared to the nation’s +1.7 percent over-the-year gain in March.

How To Find a Job

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 62,954 posted resumes with 98,957 jobs available.

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.

SOURCE: IDES news release