“Illinois Total Nonfarm Payroll Jobs Reach Record High, Unemployment Rate Stable in July,” said the Thursday headline from the Illinois Department of Employment Security. The nonfarm payroll jobs number is the most widely used measure on how many people are working.
Many headlines around the state copied that headline, and “gleeful officials in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration trumpeted the news, saying it proves Illinois is on the right path,” as Crain’s wrote. Deputy Gov. Andy Manar said “today’s record-breaking total payroll jobs data is clear indication of the marked level of strength in the labor market throughout the state.”
Any improvement is always nice, but it’s a mistake to think “record high” is good news. Today’s total is just 1.7% higher than it was 23 years ago. In other words, the number of jobs held in Illinois is essentially no better than it was in 2000, lagging badly behind job growth for the nation and all but one of our neighboring states.
| Wirepoints
These charts show those number from 1990 to the present.
To be exact, total nonfarm payrolls in Illinois in July were 6,153,500, only a tad above the 2000 total of 6,045,000. The current total is just one-tenth of one percent better than the previous peak just before the Covid pandemic, which was 6,145,000 in January 2020.
Illinois also reported that its July unemployment rate was 4%, which is the fifth highest of the 50 states.
It’s worth noting that, for the payroll numbers, a person with multiple jobs is counted multiple times because it’s the total number of payrolls processed. The unemployment numbers, however, count unemployed persons only once. It is based on a survey asking about employment during the previous week.