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 number of new hires in the Midwest increased by 127,000 year-over-year from 1.16M in February 2015 to 1.29M in February 2016.
• The Chicago (city) economy added an estimated 15,077 jobs year-over-year, led by increases in the leisure & hospitality and education & health sectors.
• Venture capital investment into Chicago companies increased by 81.8%, moving up from $97.6M in Q1 2015 to $177.5M in Q1 2016.
• The number of major expansions in the Chicago area increased by 11.7%, from 624 expansions in 2014 to 697 in 2015. This significant increase influenced Chicago’s ranking as “Top Metro” in the United States for corporate investment for the third consecutive year by Site Selection Magazine.

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