Kankakee Times

More Illinois workers were without a job in December of 2020 compared to the year before, in part due to COVID-19's economic impact.

The unemployment rate rose in the state's 14 metropolitan areas, based on statistics released from the Bureau of Labor.

Kankakee's unemployment was at 6.4% — a point higher than 2020.  Kankakee's unemployment rate was lower than the state average, which came in at 7.5% for December and slightly lower than the national figure, not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, which was 6.5%.

"As Illinois works to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic with the ongoing vaccine rollout, IDES remains committed to supporting displaced workers and families by offering support and services to those who need it," Deputy Gov. Dan Hynes said in a release about the employment figures.

Nonfarm jobs also recorded losses in each of the 14 metropolitan areas in December.

Three of those metro areas also had a record low number of nonfarm jobs since Illinois started collecting the data in 1990.

Kankakee was no exception to lost nonfarm jobs, recording just 44,200 non-farming jobs in December, which was 2,600 less than the same time the year prior.

Kankakee's nonfarm job loss wasn't as high as other communities, with the state losing a total of 419,000 of those jobs. The state dropped from 6.1 million nonfarm jobs in 2019 to 5.7 in the last month of 2020.

Hynes said the state is working to make sure that unemployed people are getting the help they need.

"The Pritzker administration and IDES continue to work with the U.S. Department of Labor to implement the new federal unemployment program changes as seamlessly as possible to ensure claimants have access to benefits for which they are eligible to receive," Hynes said.