* Greg Hinz…

Extending a trend that’s been developing for several months, the Illinois Department of Employment Security today reported that the state has gained nearly 100,000 nonfarm jobs in the past 12 months. That’s the biggest pop since July 2015, when a year-to-year increase of 105,300 was recorded. Figures shortly before that were much smaller and have dropped off since until now. […]

The specific figures come from household surveys conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and IDES. They show that, between June 2018 and this June, total non-farm employment in the state increased 94,700, to 6.266 million, a rise of about 1.5 percent. […]

The recovery appears to be fairly broad-based, with educational and health services, leisure/hospitality and professional/business services all showing healthy gains.

As a result, the unemployment rate continued to drop, off .3 percent to 4.1 percent in the Chicago area and down .7 percent to 4 percent statewide.