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, residential and office real estate data, price and purchasing indexes, and freight demand. Note: employment data refers to payroll job estimates for the city of Chicago and is not adjusted for seasonality.

Key trends include:

• The Chicago (city) economy has expanded by an estimated 3,162 jobs year-over-year, a 0.3 percent improvement since November 2015. This growth is driven by absolute gains in the professional and business services (+5,092), leisure & hospitality (+2,681), and retail trade (+1,188) sectors.
• The total number of Venture Capital rounds increased year-over-year by 24.7%, from 73 rounds in 2015 to 91 rounds in 2016.
• Air cargo tonnage at O’Hare and Midway airports increased by 14.0% year-over-year from 145,227 tons in November 2015 to 165,578 tons in November 2016.
• The total number of patents issued in Chicago (city) increased by 3.0%, from 1,720 in 2015 to 1,771 in 2016.

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