Peoria is now a scant three-tenths of a percentage point behind Bloomington-Normal in low unemployment. Peoria's jobless figure for June was 7.9%, down from 8.7% in June a year ago, and just a bit higher than the twin cities' rate of 7.6% last month. Peoria's jobless rate decline was fourth best among metro areas last month behind Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, Rockford, and Kankakee. The lowest metro unemployment rate in the state last month was in the Illinois side of the Quad Cities at 7.3% Bloomington-Normal's rate is a tenth of a point higher than during June last year despite adding 200 jobs over the past year.
Metro area June 2012 June 2011
Bloomington-Normal 7.6 7.5
Champaign-Urbana 9.1 9.1
Chicago-Joliet-Naperville 9.4 10.9
Danville 10.5 10.6
Davenport-Moline-Rock Island 7.3 7.4
Decatur 11.0 10.5
Kankakee-Bradley 11.2 12.1
Lake-Kenosha 8.7 9.2
Peoria 7.9 8.7
Rockford 11.5 12.4
Springfield 7.7 7.6
St. Louis (Illinois section) 9.0 9.1
Source: Illinois Department of Employment Security
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