Illinois has now fallen to its lowest unemployment rate since the start of the COVID pandemic in March of 2020.
The June jobless rate dropped one-tenth of one-percent, down to 4.5 percent. Illinois added 18,800 jobs last month, with nearly half of the new jobs coming in the leisure and hospitality sector, which has been slowly rebounding since being nearly shut down at the start of the pandemic.
Unemployment is down two full percentage points from a year ago, when it stood at 6.5 percent in Illinois in June of 2021.
