Story originally appeared on Northern Public Radio (NPR).
With national unemployment at its lowest level since the start of the Great Recession, the numbers keep going the wrong way in several parts of Illinois.
Peoria, Danville, and Decatur all saw unemployment increase by more than a percentage point.
Still, Gov. Pat Quinn defends his administration's efforts at building the economy. Thursday, he announced that a German manufacturer will move its U-S headquarters to Schaumburg, a Chicago suburb, a move Quinn says could create 40 jobs.
"Our employment growth ... new jobs created ... our state has had a good record in that area,” he says. “We could do much better, we want to keep on doing better, but the bottom line is we've got to make sure that we have the people who are now coming back into looking for work, providing that opportunity for them."
Even the metropolitan area in the state with the lowest unemployment -- Bloomington-Normal -- has an unemployment rate of 7.8 percent , nearly half a percentage point higher than the national average.
Decatur has the worst unemployment in the state -- where more than 13-percent of people who want to work can't find them.
