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Economy

More Jobs, Lower Unemployment

Unemployment continued to fall last month in the Quad Cities. The Illinois Department of Employment Security says our rate went from 4.8 per cent a year ago, to 3.9 per cent in November.

While this area lost retail and government jobs during the past year, those losses were more than offset by gains in education and health, construction, and even manufacturing.

The November unemployment rate of 3.9 per cent means an estimated 7,400 people were out of work and looking for jobs. And the last time the November rate was this low or lower was in 2006 when it was 3.6 per cent. 

State figures show unemployment dropped in all 14 of Illinois' major metropolitan areas, and that the number of jobs increased in ten of them - including a gain of about 3,000 in the Quad Cities. 

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois.