Full recovery is probably still a long way off, but unemployment is slowly improving in the Quad Cities during the pandemic.
Tom Austin from the Illinois Department of Employment Security says the jobless rate in August was 8.1 per cent, compared to 4.1 per cent during the same month last year. And there were job declines in all the major categories.
The unemployment rate, however, has been falling gradually since reaching 15 per cent in April when the first impact of COVID-19 was felt - 14 per cent in May, 11 in April, 9 in July, and 8 per cent last month.
"And one of those areas too has been leisure and hospitality now that industry hasn't necessarily come back as strong as it was last year but overall we have seen job gains in industries as we move over the summer months."
The eight per cent unemployment rate in August was the highest for that month in the Quad Cities since the Great Recession when it reached 8.5 per cent in 2009.
