World Business Chicago tracks indicators from month to month to gauge the strength of several aspects of Chicago’s economy, including employment in major sectors, number of patents, price and purchasing indexes, and freight demand.

Key trends include:

• The Chicago (city) economy has expanded by an estimated 8,147 jobs year-over-year since January 2017. The largest gains were in the Leisure and Hospitality (+3,976), Educational and Health Services (+3,514), and Financial Services (+3,374) sectors.
• The City of Chicago’s unemployment rate decreased from 6.2 in January 2017 to 5.9 in January 2018.
• Air Cargo Tonnage increased by 6.9% from 143,097 tons in January 2017 to 152,967 tons in January 2018.
• The Chicago Business Barometer (Purchasing Managers Index) increased from 57.4 in February 2017 to 61.9 in February 2018.

These and other trends are illustrated in this month’s Chicago by the Numbers.