Report: Illinois worst state for job recovery after Great Recession

By Max Rust

Just ahead of Friday’s employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, local think tank Illinois Policy earlier this week released a report showing that despite the two best months of job growth in 9 years, the state lags far behind in recovering from the Great Recession.

The report points out that in November and December, the state had it’s best consecutive 2 month period of job growth since 2006:

From the report:

This is welcome news in a state where economic opportunity has been severely lacking. However, even if this two-month success is the result of regime confidence, Illinois’ sudden job-creation steam will run out without a healthy fuel of economic-reform policies.

The report then points out that since January of 2008, Illinois has the most negative change in the number of jobs of any state.

Furthermore, Illinois still lays claim to the worst recession recovery in the nation. According to the BLS household survey, there are still 216,000 fewer Illinoisans working than when the Great Recession began, the worst of any state and one of only 22 states that still have fewer people working than when the recession started.

Use this map to see how Illinois compares in the change in jobs from January 2008 through December:

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