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.

Key trends include:

• The Chicago (city) economy has expanded by an estimated 13,460 jobs year-over-year since July 2016. This growth is driven by absolute gains in Financial Activities (+5,743 jobs), Transportation, Warehousing & Utilities (+1,785), and Leisure & Hospitality (+1,685).
• The Chicago (city) unemployment rate decreased by .5 points YOY to 6.1% in August 2017.
• Air cargo tonnage increased by 26.3%, from 142,565.7 in July 2016 to 180,104.0 in July 2017.
• The Chicago Business Barometer (Purchasing Managers Index) increased from 51.5 in August 2016 to 58.9 in August 2017.

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