The Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) reported last Thursday that the unemployment rate in the state had risen by 0.2% to reach 5.2% in July. This data was based on preliminary information provided by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and released by IDES. The revised unemployment rate for June remained unchanged at 5.0%, despite the initial June unemployment rate being the same. Furthermore, there was a revision in the June payroll figures, with a shift from an initial report of a 10,400 job increase to a decrease of 4,300 jobs.
The July unemployment rate and payroll data represent the state’s economic activity for the week including the 12th of July. Illinois’s unemployment rate in July was 0.9 percentage points higher than the national unemployment rate for the same month, which stood at 4.3%. This was an increase of 0.2 percentage points from the previous month. Compared to a year ago when it was 4.4%, Illinois’s unemployment rate had risen by 0.8 percentage points.
Across the state, the number of unemployed individuals totaled 341,600, marking a 4.2% increase from the previous month and a significant 19.4% rise from the same period the previous year. The unemployment rate serves as a metric to identify individuals who are actively seeking employment and are currently without work. Even individuals who have exhausted their benefits or are ineligible for them are included in the unemployment rate if they continue to actively search for work.
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