Chicago's unemployment rate fell to 10.7 percent in April

金牛银熊

The unemployment rate in the Chicago metropolitan area continued to improve in April, falling to 10.7 percent from 11.2 percent in March, the Illinois Department of Employment Security reported today.

The rate was up from 9.8 percent in April 2009 and was above year-ago levels in all 12 metropolitan areas for the 35th straight month, but the increases have been consistently smaller in each of the four most recent months, IDES said. The rate was 11.3 percent in February.

The Chicago metropolitan area lost 84,500 jobs last month from a year earlier.

“Four consecutive months of smaller increases in (the unemployment) rate is encouraging because it offers another measure that indicates this national recession might be nearing an end,” IDES Director Maureen O’Donnell said in a statement. “Knowing that unemployment rates look to the past, and knowing that Illinois has added more than 51,000 jobs so far this year, suggests that we are closer to escaping the pressure that the Great Recession has exerted on our local job markets.”

The unemployment rate in Illinois was 10.8 percent in April, IDES revealed last week.

The highest unemployment rates were in the Rockford area at 16.3 percent, the Kankakee-Bradley area at 13.6 percent, the Decatur area at 12.8 percent and the Danville area at 12.7 percent.

The lowest unemployment rates were in the Bloomington-Normal area at 7.9 percent, the Springfield area at 8.4 percent, the Champaign-Urbana area at 8.8 percent and the Davenport-Moline-Rock Island area at 9.2 percent.

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