Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Champaign-Urbana, IL MSA · October 2026
Every advertised-pay, job-posting and industry figure in this briefing comes from WageScape's own database of active job postings. The sources below back the external facts cited in the written analysis.
Sources cited in this report
This Month's Takeaways
Chicago unemployment rose 1.1 points YoY to 5.6%
Bureau of Labor Statistics — Metro area unemployment comparison, Aug 2025-2026
Illinois labor force contracted from 6.571M to 6.477M
Moody's Analytics / CGFA — Illinois labor force size, March vs August 2026
Local Economic Conditions
Champaign-Urbana unemployment rate at 3.6% in August 2026
Illinois Department of Employment Security — Metro unemployment data, preliminary August 2026
Metro nonfarm employment grew 0.3% YoY through June 2026
Illinois Department of Employment Security — MSA nonfarm payroll employment trend
Looking Ahead
National payrolls added 29,000 in September, prior months revised down 60,000
Bureau of Labor Statistics — September 2026 employment situation report
Illinois WARN notices affected 16,782 workers year-to-date 2026
Illinois Department of Employment Security WARN database — Statewide WARN Act notice tracking, 2026 YTD
How the numbers are calculated
- Advertised pay is the median of the pay ranges employers publish in active job postings in this metro. It is not survey or payroll data.
- Percent changes compare the latest six full months with the six months before that, for the same metro and sector.
- Sectors group postings by the employer's industry (NAICS) classification into ten sectors. Where a metro has too few postings in a sector, the state figure is used instead.
- Role pay trends use the same comparison windows. "Stable" means a change of less than 3%; "moderate" 3–10%; "significant" more than 10%.
Official data for comparison