May 24, 2011

Oak Park Gets Good News On JobsBy Jim JaworskiTribLocal.com

Oak Park’s unemployment rate sits well below the regional average and continues to move in the right direction as the economy slowly improves, figures provided by the Illinois Department of Employment Security show.

Unemployment figures in Oak Park continue to decline, with a 5.6 rate in the village for March, according to figures compiled by the Chicago Tribune from the Illinois Department of Employment Security. The Oak Park unemployment rate is well under the 8.9 percent rate for the greater Chicago area, which includes Cook County, the collar counties, southeast Wisconsin and northwest Indiana. The national unemployment rate is 8.7 percent.

When asked about the figures, Village President David Pope said the news was good.

“Based on the population we have here, the skills they possess are needed in this economy,” he said.

The figures include those unemployed and actively looking for work, but do not include the voluntarily unemployed, such as stay-at-home parents, and the long-term unemployed who have given up looking for work.

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