Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · IL NONMETROPOLITAN AREA · 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
Key Indicators
Illinois long-run employment growth forecast of 0.6% vs 2.8% national
Moody's Analytics — Illinois economic forecast, 2026
This Month's Takeaways
Illinois payrolls up 15,000 year-over-year through August 2026
Illinois Department of Employment Security — IDES August 2026 payroll release
Q1 2026 EDGE commitments near $2.5B, including Hyundai Translead $450M project
Illinois Economic Development Corporation — Q1 2026 EDGE tax credit program commitments
Local Economic Conditions
Illinois labor force contracted from 6,571,000 to 6,477,000, March-August 2026
Illinois Department of Employment Security / Moody's Analytics — Pre-researched state labor force data
Looking Ahead
29 WARN notices affecting 9,357 workers in Illinois over trailing 90 days
Illinois WARN Act filings — State WARN notice tracking, late September 2026
National wage growth at 3.0% versus 3.4% inflation, weakest since May 2021
Bureau of Labor Statistics — September 2026 employment situation report
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