Jobless Rate Down in Illinois

During the month of April, the jobless rate managed to decline. The month of April was the eighth month in a row that there was a decline in the jobless rate for the residents of the Illinois area. However, job growth seems to have come to a halt, stalling quite a bit. The information was released on a report that came from the Department of Employment Security earlier in the week. The overall unemployment for the state dropped slightly from 8.8 percent during the month of March to 8.7 percent for the month of April. The jobless rate is getting close to the national jobless rate, which is currently at 8.1 percent.

When it came to job cuts and job create, only about 100 jobs were created during the month of April, when compared to the amount of jobs that ended up being cut. Many of these jobs created are only temporary jobs, created for the particular season, which shows that employers are still worried about hiring too many people for permanent positions, as the economy is not really where it needs to be. The CEO for LaSalle Network, Tom Gimbel, says that employers still have concerns about what will happen in the future, a few months down the line. A lot of these employers are worried because of the European debt crisis and the effect that it can and will have on the United States. They believe that if they have clients in Europe, because of the crisis, they could end up dealing with some problems in the future.

Although growth during the month of April was fairly slow, the state of Illinois still seems to be doing well when it comes down to creating jobs for the state, having created nearly 6,300 jobs each month for the past three months, prior to the month of April. During the month of April, the manufacturing sector seemed to do the best, adding a total of 2,600 jobs. In the meantime, the government sector added 2,300 jobs as well, while professional and business services added about 2,000 jobs. The manufacturing sector has been doing exceptionally well for quite a few months, helping the economy to improve in the state of Illinois.

The hiring for those working in the construction sector actually declined by about 3,200 jobs, which happened to be quite a large decline, especially since there was a similar drop during the previous year. The Department of Employment believes that the reason there has been a slowdown is because the winter season was relatively warm, which was unusual, and because of that, some employers chose to hire workers in advance instead of waiting until the warmer weather came.