Chicagoland unemployment continues to rise
Unemployment self-portrait by Diego Cupolo/Flickr.com
BY KATIE ROGERS – MEDILL NEWS SERVICE
On the heels of Tuesday reports indicating green shoots in the Chicago area housing market, and the Fed’s Beige Book Wednesday suggesting a slightly more optimistic economic outlook, The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a bleaker snapshot of metro-area unemployment numbers, including the Chicago area.
The BLS reported that the unemployment rate in the Chicago-Naperville-Joliet area rose to 11 percent in June from 10.4 percent in May and 6.7 percent in June 2008.
The Chicago-Naperville-Joliet area lost 207,600 jobs in June compared with a year ago, third in the nation behind Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, Calif. and New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, N.Y.-N.J.-Pa., which lost 259,100 and 207,600 jobs, respectively.
Not an agency immune to fewer resources due to recession, the BLS also reported it received enough funding to resume tracking monthly metro-area unemployment in some of the state’s smaller areas, such as Danville and Kankakee-Bradley, Ill. The BLS had suspended the monthly reports in March 2008 due to budget cuts enacted at the end of 2007.
The El Central, Calif. metro area recorded the highest unemployment rate in the U.S. in June of 27.5 percent.
To see for yourself how the Chicago area is faring compared with other large metro areas, click here for an interactive map.
Tags: Business, Chicago, economy, news, recession, unemployment
