Jobless rate in Chicago area rises to 10.4 percent

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Updated: September 22, 2011 8:42PM

The unemployment rate in the Chicago metropolitan area rose to 10.4 percent in August from 9.7 percent a year earlier, but dipped from 10.5 percent in July, the Illinois Department of Employment Security said Thursday.

The Chicago area was the only metropolitan area in the state to show an increase.

The area created 14,000 jobs since August 2010. That’s down from the 31,600 jobs added year-over-year in July.

The non-seasonally adjusted report showed the highest unemployment rate in the state was in the Rockford area at 13.1 percent. The area recorded the biggest drop in the rate year-over-year, falling from 14.7 percent in August 2010. Other big drops were reported in Danville, where the rate fell to 10.5 percent from 12 percent, and Peoria, where the rate fell to 8.4 percent from 9.9 percent.

The lowest unemployment rates in the state were in the Davenport-Moline-Rock Island area at 7.3 percent; the Bloomington-Normal area at 7.4 percent, and the Springfield area at 7.5 percent.

Following Chicago, the biggest job gains were in the Peoria area, which added 5,900 jobs; the Lake County-Kenosha County metropolitan division, which added 3,000, and the Kankakee-Bradley area, which added 1,400.

The biggest job losses were in the Champaign-Urbana area, which shed 2,300 jobs; the Bloomington-Normal area, which shed 1,600; and the Illinois section of the St. Louis metropolitan area, which also shed 1,600 jobs.

Local communities “continue to fight against the lingering headwinds of the national recession,” IDES Director Jay Rowell said in a statement.

Francine Knowles with AP contributing