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Knox County continues lower unemployment while labor force shrinks

Knox County saw another month of an improving unemployment rate that possibly aided by losses in the labor force.

Knox County’s unemployment rate for February was 5.1 percent but numbers from the Illinois Department of Employment Security show that there were nearly 800 more people employed in February 2017.

Galesburg has a similar story with a slight drop in unemployment last month from 5.1 to 5.0 however the labor force is 467 people lighter than a year ago.

Knox is hardly the exception when compared neighboring counties though.

Fulton County saw a similiar scenario with their unemployment rate drop nearly 2 points in the last year but has also lost 358 from the labor force.

However, neighboring counties like Warren, Henderson, Henry, Stark all saw substantial improvement in their unemployment rate over the last year without the same kind of loss in labor force.

Warren County now has the ninth lowest unemployment rate among Illinois counties.

Warren has virtually the same number of people employed than they did four years ago even though their rate has shrunk about 4 points over that period.

Knox County has witnessed a loss of about 2,500 from their labor force since May 2014.

Illinois overall has seen the unemployment drop from 5.6 a year ago to an even 5 a month ago while adding 8,000 to the labor force.

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