Illinois unemployment rate drops to 11 percent
Rehiring slows, but hospitality industry leads gains, even as declines persist year to year
Enclosed individual dining tables are set up along what’s become a restaurant row on Randolph Street in Chicago. The hospitality industry led rehiring statewide in August. (Facebook/Matt Lindner)
By Ted Cox
The state unemployment rate dropped another half percentage point to 11 percent in August, led by gains in the hospitality industry and renewed government employment.
The Illinois Department of Employment Security released its monthly unemployment report Thursday, finding that the state rate fell from the revised figure of 11.5 percent in July to 11 percent in August.
But the good news was tempered by a slowed pace in rehiring as the state attempts to recover from the economic collapse brought on by mitigation efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 this spring. The state added 66,000 nonfarm payroll positions over the month, down from the revised figure of just over 100,000 new jobs in July.
Leisure and hospitality, government, and professional and business services were the three areas registering the most gains in employment, which were widespread, with only the information industry on the decline, according to IDES. The number of unemployed workers declined 2.9 percent from July, but that still left 695,000 idled statewide.
“Compared to a year ago, nonfarm payroll employment decreased by 428,700 jobs, with losses across all major industries,” IDES reported. Although restaurants, bars, and hotels led the recovery, they also continued to suffer the largest losses from a year ago, followed by professional and business services and trade, transportation, and utilities. Last August, the unemployment rate stood at 3.8 percent.
“While it’s encouraging to see a continued month-over-month decline in Illinois’s unemployment rate, there remains much to do to bring more Illinoisans safely back to work and to rebuild our economy,” said Erin Guthrie, director of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. “That’s why the Pritzker administration continues to prioritize critical investments that support our hardest-hit communities and small businesses, like our recent $220 million expansion of the Business Interruption Grants program,” announced earlier this week by Gov. Pritzker, “and hundreds of millions in additional ongoing assistance for our communities and our community employers. These investments will help stabilize our small businesses, enable our economy to continue to safely reopen, return more Illinoisans to work, and provide our economy the boost it needs.”
“As the unemployment rate steadily declines and confidence in the economy increases as more people return to the workforce, IDES remains committed to assisting those individuals still impacted by this pandemic and in need of unemployment services,” said Acting Director Kristin Richards. “In addition to providing unemployment benefits, the department is also prepared to assist individuals with job training and matching workers with hiring employers to help as many Illinoisans as possible return to work to provide for their families and basic needs.”
The Illinois unemployment rate continued to run higher than the national rate of 8.4 percent reported for August, but while Illinois was severely hit by the lockdown imposed to stem the pandemic, its recovery was on par with most other states across the country, and by some measures was among the best. WalletHub released a study this week finding that, bad as the year-to-year figures appeared, comparing all those on unemployment in August to a year ago, Illinois actually ranked fourth among the 50 states for quickest recovery.
Comparing the 23,000 newly filed claims for benefits recored last week to the 6,600 filed for the same week a year ago, the state ranked 24th in the nation for quickest recovery, while comparing last week’s new claims to the almost 12,000 filed the first week of the year, before the pandemic hit, Illinois ranked 22nd for slowest recovery — both placing the state in the middle of the pack nationally.