Unemployment in the Quad Cities rose after Christmas, but was still significantly lower than a year ago.
Tom Austin, from the Illinois Department of Employment Security, says unemployment in January was 6.5 per cent, versus 7.6 per cent during the same month last year.
And while the jobless rate in the Quad Cities dropped 1.1 percentage points in January, the declines were much greater elsewhere in Illinois. For example, the rate fell more than 3 percentage points in Rockford, Decatur, and Danville.
January was the 11th month in a row that unemployment rates fell in all the major metro areas of Illinois, and it was the 6th month in a row that the rates fell in all 102 counties.
