\n\t\t\t\tChicago\u2019s worst employment climate score since 2009 drove a 25th month of business decline.
\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Chicago businesses reported<\/a> the lowest recorded employment score since May 2009, according to the Chicago Business Barometer.<\/p>\n For the second consecutive month, no survey respondents reported increased employment.<\/p>\n The analysis gave Chicago an overall score of 43.5 in December 2025, the 25th consecutive month of decline. A score below 50 indicates decline.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The barometer surveys supply chain professionals across industries on a range of factors, including the number of new orders, inventories, production, employment and supplier deliveries. It asks businesses whether there have been increases, decreases or no change in these factors for their companies, then calculates a single overall indicator of the health of Chicago\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n The employment score measures whether companies report increasing employment, which none did. Chicago\u2019s job market has remained challenging for years. Chicago-area unemployment stood<\/a> at 4.5% as of November 2025 compared to a national rate of 4.3%<\/a>, the latest data<\/a> showed. Chicago\u2019s unemployment increased<\/a> from 4.1% in September.<\/p>\n Most of the December job gains in the Chicago area, which includes Cook and 12 other counties, were<\/a> in government, which added 27,400 jobs. Education and health added 16,600 jobs.<\/p>\n Chicago\u2019s unemployment would be higher if so many people had not stopped looking for work. Illinois\u2019 labor force participation rate has\u00a0declined\u00a0<\/a>from 65.1% in December 2024 to 64.1% in September 2025. Illinois\u2019 labor force level\u00a0is down<\/a> by\u00a083,880, many of those in the Chicago area.<\/p>\n In every quarter from September 2022 to July 2025, employment increased more nationally than in Chicago.<\/p>\n The contraction of business activity remained widespread across survey categories. Order backlogs rebounded<\/a> somewhat by 12.3 points, after a 21.5 point decrease the previous month. Inventories also declined.<\/p>\n While the U.S. economy as a whole grew 2.9% in 2023, the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin region grew at only 1.4%, according to federal data<\/a>.<\/p>\n To stop the slide, the city of Chicago needs to focus on pro-growth policies such as:<\/p>\n The city avoided<\/a> the job-killing proposal<\/a> for a \u201chead tax\u201d of $33 per employee for businesses over 500 people. But it did increase<\/a> the tax on cloud-based computer services from 11% to 15%.<\/p>\n Chicago needs to foster business, not find more harmful taxation that further extends its decline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chicago\u2019s worst employment climate score since 2009 drove a 25th month of business decline.
Chicago businesses reported…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":507771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-507770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115874711748183720","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n