Adams County Ranks 2nd for Lowest Unemployment in Illinois

[share] Adams County, Illinois unemployment stands at 7.2% for January. That’s a full 2 percentage-point drop from January 2010. Adams County currently ranks 2nd lowest in unemployment out of 102 counties in the state. Unemployment in Quincy dropped 2.2% from a year ago and now stands at 7.6%.

In an article in the Quincy Herald-Whig, GREDF president Jim Mentesti said the labor force has grown in the past year in Quincy and Adams County.

“Usually when the labor force grows, it can move your unemployment rate up too but the reverse has been true locally,” Mentesti said.

He has seen “numbers moving in the right direction” at a time of year when unemployment can spike in communities with a lot of retailers who might downsize after the Christmas shopping season.

The Quincy micropolitan statistical area had the state’s lowest 2010 annual average unemployment rate for larger job markets — at 7.5 percent. 

See the numbers for yourself: visit Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) on the Illinois Department of Employment Security’s Labor Market Information website.