The unemployment rate in Illinois fell to 9.6 percent in November, the eighth consecutive month of improvement. The jobless figure is a smidge below the October rate of 9.8 percent.
The Illinois Department of Employment Security released the figures Thursday.
IDES Director Maureen O’Donnell says the improvement is “another encouraging sign” that the state’s economy is moving forward.
Last year, the November unemployment rate in Illinois was 10.9 percent.
There still were 641,000 people without jobs in Illinois last month, the lowest level since April 2009. Unemployment peaked at 11.5 percent in March of this year, when almost 765,000 workers were unemployed.
The national unemployment rate for November is 9.8 percent.
Instead of saying unemployment fell to 9.6 in Illinois, why not state the truth that unemployment is still high under obama.
When was the last time IL had a jobless rate better than the nation as a whole?
@clarence…If you don’t think that Obama inherited a mess of an economy, you are only deluding yourself. All signs are pointing towards a gradual improvement over the next year. Not bad, considering that the capitalism – as we know it – literally almost ended. Stuff that in your pipe and do something. Vote Palin.
As we know, the unemployment number, is the number of people filing for unemployment, not the true number of people unemployed. I was hoping that the report would give more of a picture of the state of jobs in Illinois, not just a small portion. The fact that they have not told us how many people were HIRED in the past month is very telling in itself.
As Governor Edgar once said, “If you’re unemployed, the unemployment rate is 100%.” We want to know where the line is to get jobs so we can help reduce the overall unemployment rate in Illinois. We’d like to get “preference points” analogous to the veterans’ preference points, so that we can get jobs ahead of people who are just trying to change jobs. Right now we’d be content to be allowed to work just 90% of each year, instead of having to listen to pols on all sides drone “wait till the economy improves” and the prejudiced employers have to scrape us off the bottom of the barrel, which is where they’re stomped us thinking there’s something wrong with all unemployed people. That’s prejudice.
Nice to hear some nice news, although obviously there are still far too many jobless. Why blame Obama? He inherited the fasting-collapsing economoy since the early 1930’s compliments of greedy bankers, lax regulators, and disastrous G. W. Bush. The housing/banking meltdown was just too big to see a quick comeback.
I know 2 people that have been unemployed for 99 weeks and are still out of work. How are these people accounted for in these numbers?
I have been unemployed for 99 weeks and there is still no work. All I qualify is for foodstamps. When do I start stealing to live?
@GJM, They aren’t. That’s at least part of the reason the employment numbers are falling. People are falling out of the “countable” category and being pushed into “shadow” unemployment. Wonder what the “real” unemployment rate would be if you included those out of work but no longer counted, and those consulting, freelancing, etc, earning very small fees from time to time, but not enough to support themselves.