World Business Chicago tracks indicators from month to month to gauge the strength of several aspects of Chicago’s economy, including employment in major sectors, residential and office real estate data, price and purchasing indexes, and freight demand.

Key trends include:

• The Chicago (city) economy has expanded by an estimated 10,042 jobs year-over-year since November 2016. The largest gains were in the Financial Activities (+4,409), Educational and Health Services (+2,980), and Construction (+2,661) sectors.
• The City of Chicago’s unemployment rate decreased from 6.0 in December 2016 to 5.2 in December 2017.
• Illinois Exports increased by 1% from $5.1B in December 2016 to $5.5B in December 2017.
• The Chicago Business Barometer (Purchasing Managers Index) increased from 50.3 in January 2017 to 65.7 in January 2018.

These and other trends are illustrated in this month’s Chicago by the Numbers.