Tom Austin from the Illinois Department of Employment Security says this area lost a few jobs in the financial sector, but that was more than offset by job gains in all the other major sectors, totaling more than 13,000.
"Leisure and hospitality, as you recall, was one of the hardest hit industries when we went into the pandemic and we're starting to see those numbers come back as we see increases when we look over the year."
Job increases totaled 4,700 in the leisure and hospitality category, followed by 1,900 in education and health, 1,800 in retail, 1,400 in government, and 1,300 more jobs in construction.
In addition to the big drop in May compared to a year ago, Quad Cities unemployment has been dropping steadily since the year began - 6.8 per cent in January, 6.1 in February, 5.9 per cent in March, 5.6 per cent April, and 5 per cent in May.