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 13,908 jobs year-over-year since November 2016. The largest gains were in the Financial Activities (+6,249), Transportation, Warehousing & Utilities (+3,040) and Educational and Health Services (+2,988) sectors.
• The City of Chicago’s unemployment rate decreased from 5.9 in November 2016 to 5.3 in November 2017.
• Air cargo tonnage increased by 9.9%, from 167,675 in November 2016 to 184,204 in November 2017.
• The Chicago Business Barometer (Purchasing Managers Index) increased from 54.6 in December 2016 to 67.6 in December 2017.

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