Rock Island Today

Illinois businesses lost jobs in six metro areas in June, the largest hit being the Quad Cities, down 5,500 jobs, the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) and the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said.

Many of the jobs lost in Davenport-Bettendorf-Moline-Rock Island were in the region's largest sector: trade, transportation and utilities, where employment fell by 5.6 percent, one of the largest reductions nationwide, based on IDES and BLS data for June 2016.

“While we boost our efforts to help employers connect with qualified candidates, we also need effective policies in place to realize robust job growth in Illinois,” Jeff Mays, director of IDES, said.

Brandi McGuire, the Republican candidate running for the District 72 State House seat, suggested one way to turn around job losses.

“Only one way to change this -- change the business climate in our state," McGuire said on her Facebook page. "Only way to change that is to change out the politicians with business-minded citizens."

Gov. Bruce Rauner said he wants members of the Illinois General Assembly to return for the fall veto session prepared to vote on placing a constitutional amendment for term limits on the ballot and to create independently drawn legislative district maps.

“Term limits and fair maps would give the people of Illinois more control over our broken political system,” Rauner said during a recent press conference.

By placing term limits to remove entrenched career politicians, Rauner said new faces in Springfield would be able to bring in new ideas on how to bring back jobs to the state.

While Rauner also said term limits won’t fix everything – including the state’s broken pension system, high property taxes, under-funded schools and regulatory burdens on businesses – these issues would be more easily solved if the political system worked for the public rather than for an elite few.

Meanwhile, eight of Illinois’ 14 metropolitan areas experienced decreases in their year-over-year unemployment rates, and eight of the metro areas had increases in nonfarm jobs, IDES and BLS said.

Of the other top metro areas seeing job decreases similar to the Quad Cities, data showed that Bloomington, Illinois, saw a drop of 1,500 jobs, while Peoria experienced 2,400 job losses.