In a separate analysis published this week that looked at unemployment trends in the Chicago Metropolitan Statistical Area — a somewhat larger geographic region that encompasses 14 counties, including parts of Wisconsin and Indiana — the planning agency noted that the region's growing unemployment rate has coincided with a sharp increase in the number of people working or seeking work. The labor force for the Chicago MSA hit 5 million in March, the largest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking it in the early 1990s, it said.