February 10, 2017 – Chicago
Private sector employment in the Chicago area reached an all-time high in 2016 and accounts for 85 percent of all private sector jobs added in the State of Illinois since the Great Recession.
Recent analysis by Mr. Peter Bernstein, Vice President at RCF shows that the Chicago area and the rest of Illinois both suffered substantial job losses during the Great Recession. But only the Chicago area has recovered its lost jobs, and in fact the area reached an all-time high in employment in 2016. In contrast, employment in the rest of Illinois has hardly seen any job recovery over the past seven years, and employment there remains both below its pre-Great Recession peak and below its level in 2001. The full report can be found here.
The difference between the Chicago area economy and the economy in the rest of the state has had and will continue to have important implications for Illinois. Future RCF reports will look deeper at these issues and will also compare the experience of the Chicago area with that of other major cities in the Midwest and around the U.S.