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 10,335 jobs year-over-year, a 0.8 percent improvement since September 2015. This growth is driven by absolute gains in the business services (+5,307) and leisure & hospitality (+4,233) sectors. The construction sector experienced the largest year-over-year growth in percentage terms (+3.4%).
• Unemployment insurance claims in Cook County decreased by 13.3%, from 16,446 in October 2015 to 14,257 in October 2016.
• The number of new hires in the Midwest increased by 17,000 (+1.5%) year-over-year from 1.12M in October 2015 to 1.14M in October 2016. The Chicago area firm hiring outlook (net) improved 4 percentage points.
• The number of patents issued in Chicago (city) increased by 4.4%, from 1,407 in October 2015 YTD to 1,469 in October 2016 YTD.

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