WASHINGTON: Illinois’ unemployment rate ticked up to 6.6 percent in April as more people continued to join the labor force but didn’t immediately find jobs. The state added 5,400 jobs last month, but more than half of the growth was in temporary jobs or through employment agencies, the Illinois Department of Employment Security said in a news release Thursday announcing the preliminary April data. The portion of jobs that are full-time is lower than it was before the Great Recession began.
The state’s unemployment rate, which has been increasing for six months in a row, was up from 6.5 percent in March and up from 5.9 percent a year before. It is far higher than the U.S. average of 5 percent, which stayed steady from the prior month. Illinois, which had a worse jobless rate than the national average during the recession, has been among the slower states to recover.
