Counties with the highest unemployment in Illinois
Unemployment rates have continued to rise across U.S. metropolitan areas, provoking alarm throughout the nation and guiding the Federal Reserve's decision to cut interest rates last month.
As of August, unemployment rates had increased from the previous year in 315 out of 389 U.S. metros areas—including 45 of the 51 largest metros, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
To get a glimpse of regional variations in employment, Stacker compiled a list of counties with the highest unemployment rates in Illinois, using BLS data. Counties are ranked by their preliminary unemployment rate in August 2024, with initial ties broken by the number of unemployed people within that county, though some ties may remain. County-level unemployment rates are not seasonally adjusted.
The national unemployment rate remains relatively low at 4.1% in September, down slightly from the previous month. Still, it's up substantially from 3.8% during the same month last year and remains higher than it had otherwise been since December 2021. By comparison, unemployment rates surged to 10% in October 2009 during the Great Recession, and a full recovery took years. At the height of the brief COVID-19 recession in April 2020, unemployment hit 14.7%.
The Federal Reserve has shifted its focus from curbing inflation to unemployment, cutting interest rates to alleviate economic strain and spur job growth.
Since last year, unemployment has spiked in half of states—a signal often indicating a looming recession, as Piper Sandler Chief Global Economist Nancy Lazar told Business Insider. These jobless rates, paired with layoffs among major U.S. employers like Google and Tesla, have sparked concern among Americans. Minus a major economic blow, economists continue to forecast that the U.S. is tracking toward an incremental slowdown in growth known as a "soft landing." The Fed plans to continue cutting rates to achieve this.
To get a better idea of your community's current economy, read on to see the counties with the highest unemployment in Illinois.
