While nearly every industry in the Chicago area saw an over-the-year job decrease during January, the ax fell hardest on Chicago construction jobs.

The Chicago-Naperville-Joliet area’s unemployment rate came in at 8.2 percent during January, up from 6.9 percent during December 2008. The area had a total non-farm employment of 3,697,200 workers during January, according to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is down from 3,810,400 workers during December and a 2.8 percent decrease from last year.

Chicago’s construction industry only employed 137,000 workers during January, down from 153,400 workers during December and a 10 percent decrease from last year. The area’s construction industry has seen an over-the-year decline every month for the last six months: by 5.3 percent during August, by 6.3 percent during September, by 7.4 percent during October, by 9 percent during November, by 10.2 percent during December and by 10 percent during January.

Other industries that saw an over-the-year decrease in Chicago jobs during January include:

The only industries that saw an over-the-year jobs gain during January were education and health services by, which increased by 2.5 percent to 521,500 workers, and government, which increased by .2 percent to 471,900 workers.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 10:15 am and is filed under Jobs, Construction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.