(Not) Made In Illinois: State Loses Six Percent of Manufacturing Jobs

By aaroncynic in News on Jan 13, 2010 4:40PM

Illinois doesn't need more bad economic news, but bad news just keeps coming. According to the 2010 Illinois Manufacturers Directory, the state lost 51,925 industrial jobs and 709 manufacturers last year, the sharpest decline since Manufacturer's News, Inc began publishing statistics. Twenty years ago, Illinois had over 1.1 million manufacturing jobs, compared to just over 800,000 the state has currently.

Nationwide, the manufacturing industry hasn't fared much better. Six million jobs disappeared from the manufacturing sector since 1997. That number will probably increase in the coming years, as the Buerau of Labor Statistics reports overall employment in manufacturing will decline by 9 percent in the coming years.

Illinois isn't likely to see any of those jobs come back any time soon. In an interview with Medill, Jim Nelson, VP of Communications for the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association said "Historically, Illinois is among the last states to enter a recession, and among the very last states to recover from a recession."