By: Nick Binotti
Short-term. Long-term. No matter how you slice it, Illinois’ manufacturing sector is in trouble.
Manufacturing jobs hit a new low for 2023, down 7,800 this year and well off its peak of 570,700 jobs in January, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And unlike most of our neighbors, Illinois has failed to capitalize on the overall recovery in manufacturing since 2010.
In fact, Illinois has added just 7,600 manufacturing jobs in the last 13 years while neighbors like Kentucky added 54,000 jobs and struggling Michigan added 142,000 workers, nearly 20 times that of Illinois.
Illinois’ toxic combination of high taxes, anti-business environment, the nation’s-worst credit rating and overall failed governance continue to cripple its manufacturing sector.
Struggling manufacturing
Illinois once had over 900,000 manufacturing jobs in 1990. That number has collapsed to fewer than 600,000 today.
Since 2010, there has been a recovery in manufacturing across the country. Unfortunately, Illinois has been unable to capitalize on the overall 13 percent growth in manufacturing jobs nationally, growing a meager 1 percent over that timespan.
By comparison, states like Montana and Idaho have seen their small manufacturing sectors grow significantly, gaining more than 30 percent over the last 13 years. Nevada is the big winner, with its 38,000 manufacturing jobs in 2010 growing to more than 70,000 in 2023 – a growth of more than 80 percent.
Other states with fewer manufacturing jobs have been outperforming Illinois as well since 2010. For example, both Tennessee and Florida have grown via adding 72,800 and 113,100 manufacturing jobs, respectively, over that time. And nearby Ohio, up 12 percent overall, has managed to extend its lead over Illinois by adding 68,500 more manufacturing jobs.
Illinois’ problems are not a Rust Belt issue. All of Illinois’ neighbors have greatly outperformed the Prairie State’s 1 percent growth since 2010: Michigan is up 31 percent, Kentucky 26 percent, Indiana 23 percent, Missouri 18 percent, Iowa 15 percent, Wisconsin 13 percent.
Decline since 2019
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s recent speech to Crain’s was full of optimism for Illinois’ jobs climate. But the reality is far different – as we wrote here. Manufacturing, in particular, has suffered.
Since the governor took office in 2019, Illinois manufacturing has lagged both nationally and regionally. While the nation is up 1 percent over that timespan, Illinois is down 4.7 percent, the 7th-worst showing nationally.
Some of Illinois’ neighbors like Wisconsin and Indiana are down as well, but only Michigan has suffered a worse jobs loss than Illinois at 5 percent. Manufacturing jobs in Iowa, Kentucky, and Missouri were all grew.
Illinois’ neighbors are cutting taxes and making their states more attractive to businesses. Their manufacturing sectors are growing back naturally as a result.
Illinois should do the same. If not, Illinois’ manufacturing struggles will continue.
Read more from Wirepoints:
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Automation has increased thru-put in manufacturing while lessening the reliance on labor. Can you show similar statistics but using thru-put instead of manufacturing employment? Illinois still probably lags, but not as dramatically.
Woke people have no interest in making things out of metal, electronics, wood, engines, motors, whatever. Farmers and rural folks however can make just about anything you can think of, in their garages and barns. So this trend in Illinois makes a lot of sense.
I took a drive through Alton recently and what was once a town with a bustling manufacturing environment now looks hollowed out. Gone are so many good well paying jobs that
characterized Alton back in the day. Oh well, it’s not East St louis yet.
Every small to mid-sized city throughout the state of Illinois looks run down and hollowed out. Rockford, Waukegan, Elgin, Danville, Freeport, Peoria, Marion, Kewanee, Kankakee, even Springfield is a very ‘sleepy’ and ‘quiet’ town despite being the capital. There’s a handful of exceptions here and there but overall it’s a pretty dumpy state. And the difference between similarly sized MI, WI and IN towns is striking. Podunk little towns all over WI seem more put together and prosperous than most towns south of I-80. I’ve camped and hiked all over the midwest through my life and really, other than Shawnee… Read more »
Ah yes the Roller derby skate company that supplied the country with roller skates made in Litchfield and the Hollywood Candy company in Centralia.
I was recently talking to someone who had just moved here from Massachussets, and they asked “So, what is Illinois like?”, to which I replied, “All of Illinois sucks, lol…” I said that downstate IL is a depressing Rust Belt place, riddled with fentanyl, poverty and dysfunction even in the very rural areas. I told her that there’s plenty to see and do in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, even Iowa and Missouri and Kentucky, but not here. Champaign and Bloomington/Normal are two of the better IL places, but they are both windswept flat and boring prairie towns, outside of their educational… Read more »
My wife and I visited Nashville last year. Found ourselves in a honkey tonk listening to a fine Bluegrass band. At one point the band leader asked the crowd “where y’all from?”. My wife made the mistake of shouting out “Chicago!” (even though we’re in the burbs). Well, the whole bar turned to look at us, they were not smiling. I felt like pretending I didn’t know my wife. Tennessee knows all too well how their state is being invaded and potentially taken from them by Illinois wokesters heading there. Folks down there are still ultra-polite, ma’am and sir, thank… Read more »
I used to be proud to say, “I love Chicago and here’s why…”, but now I’m embarrassed by how low we’ve sunk (now I’m living in Evanston, it’s not much better, lol…!!!). And it did not take long for me to become ashamed of the place, the real degradation started under Larry Lightfoot and has only increased, and at warp speed with Mayor Moron and Guv’nor Fatty Da Klown piloting the “USS Chicago/Illinois Titanic”…
Well Rick I made that mistake out west in the 80s and the guy asked me if they still made cars in Detroit!
Unions in Illinois make everything “happen”, just ask them. Why can’t they create more jobs? Could it be because it’s too expensive to create another high paying, overtaxed, union heavy manufacturing plant in Illinois?
I know from personal experience with the UAW, the Bosses would rather lose jobs than give in on a contract. Most of them do not even live in IL anyhow. But the differences between private unions and the public employee unions is day and night. Private unions have to deliver value for they must function in the domestic and international market or the company could go out of business. Public unions aren’t compelled to add value at all, and have no real concerns of layoffs, downsizing, offshoring, or outsourcing. Public unions spend most of their efforts cajoling public officials to… Read more »
And public employee unions in Illinois specifically are the least productive, most corrupt, and enjoy the biggest support from elected politicians. Sickos!
“Illinois’ toxic combination of high taxes, anti-business environment, the nation’s-worst credit rating and overall failed governance continue to cripple its manufacturing sector.” I would not expect any of this to change. You can throw tax credits at the problem but as you can see that’s really expensive for the taxpayers and it has minimal effect.
Let’s add how Pritzker threw away another golden opportunity to put IL on better footing by letting the IKA get killed off to appease the CTU. Pritzker and Democrats only real concern for the private sector is figuring how to tax them even more to prop up the public employee unions and pay for pet Democrat projects like ‘Green’ and illegal aliens. The culmination of all these wrong headed moves by Pritzker and Democrats is pretty much to salt the ground in IL for private investment of any magnitude.
Our non profit organization called Manufacturing Renaissance has spent the last 30+ years creating effective program prototypes to improve and increase the manufacturing workforce pipeline and also influence policy to support a rebirth–a renaissance in manufacturing. Along with many industry partners, we have done nearly everything we can think of to influence political decision-makers in Illinois including hosting advocacy days, hosting a mayoral candidate forum (which included the current mayor who promised to prioritize industrial policy in his administration. So far, crickets.), working with Congress, working with the White House, working with the private equity and investment financial community to… Read more »
And thats why smart industrial investors are putting their money in Indiana.
Mr. Robinson, I formerly worked for Jane Addams Resource Corporation, a Chicago – based non – profit that teaches manufacturing skills (welding, press brake, CNC) to low – income people who want to quickly access good – paying manufacturing careers (training is free via Federal training programs, e.g. .WIOA…). When more than a few of our trainees successfully finished training and earned their credentials, they’d move to “friendlier climes” aka Red States to pursue their careers – Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, Florida… Why? After they took our required Financial Literacy classes, they learned that they’d keep more of their hard – earned… Read more »
Thanks for the insights, David! Great to hear from advocates in the field.
Here’s to you Mr. Robinson. Heaven holds a place for those who pray and the ministers on your advocacy committee.
WP has summed things up pretty good in pointing out how Pritzker and the Democrats run IL primarily for the benefit of the public employee unions. Do not really see any change to this situation until strong outside forces come into play to change the dynamic.
These data are being used to justify obliterating the rule of law and ramming HIGHLY taxpayer-subsidized-mandates (Gotion for one) which may be decided by an Emperor or unelected Emperor. Open Meetings Act? Who cares. No Jobs! We Must Have Jobs! (We have no jobs because taxes are too high and property values are destroyed)…Solution! We need taxpayer subsidies to attract JOBS!)…(but that makes taxes even higher, and consumer prices higher because competition of honest non-insiders is squelched)…RACIST! MAGA! Misogony!…(but..) POUND PODIUM AND SAY SCIENCE IN A LoUD VOICE AND REPEAT UNTIL OPPONENTS GIVE UP! Communities just hope it is a… Read more »
The idiot liberals like Fat Fredo think that handing out tax breaks are the way to get manufacturing jobs here, like the ChiCom giveaway. They are too dumb to realize that if they lowered taxes across the board, that would have the same effect and bring in more businesses than the cherrypicked few.
So sad to see what’s become of CAT & John Deere. It reminds Old Joe of his youth in Detroit when GM had a market share of 50%. Illinois pols seem to be ignorant of the blessings which flow from a strong manufacturing base.
Just look at the moves of Caterpillar mfg, they first threatened to move out of state if things did not improve; then they followed up.
As the kids say, FAFO!
The residents of Illinois are largely ignorant of its death spiral. Sadly, even if the residents knew about it, most would not change how they vote. These were my assumptions 10 years ago. These are still my assumptions today.
A different assumption (that may not be true) is that the people leaving blue states for red states are going to vote blue in their new red state. Data is starting to come out that show that simply isn’t true. That could mean there is a trend for blue states to become even more blue and red states to become even more red. I can’t think of anything more depressing than being a conservative in Illinois 10 years from now. On the other hand, since I’m already in a conservative state, I expect many positive things as we financially crush… Read more »
The people leaving Illinois are not the liberals from NE Illinois. It’s the conservatives from downstate that are leaving. This is why Illinois is blue and getting bluer.
Conservatives from Chicago suburbs have fled over the past several decades. When DuPage County turns solidly blue over the course of two decades, you know you have a problem. The former residents move and are replaced, often by foreign born or the children of foreign born, who vote solidly Democrat.
As a former DuPage County resident sickened by the county going left as it got wealthier, I’m glad to say that I’m one of the many transplants in NC turning a former purple state red.
Well done.
It wasn’t the wealth that changed DuPage County. It was the demographic change. A majority of married men and women vote Republican, as do native born, not first or second generation immigrant. The influx of massive numbers of foriegn born hispanics into Aurora and asians into Naperville turned DuPage 19% foreign born. As we know, foreign born vote Democrat, IIRC at a 9 to 1 ratio. Biden won Dupage county 58% to 40%. That’s an 18 point difference between Republican and Democrat. And just coincidentally, although not a perfect correlation b/c not all foreign born can vote and not all… Read more »
The war on coal has decimated downstate with the closing of the mines and the power plants. Todays coal plants are very clean burning, provided numerous well paid jobs with many being multi-generational. Now those days are behind us forever. Meanwhile Gotion gets it taxpayer paid for plant. It all adds up to nothingness…a gift from the Illinois Democrats.
This conservative who lived in DuPage and Will County in Illinois packed up and left nearly seven years ago.
There was an interesting report just a few days ago that that’s what’s happening with Idaho – people from CA, OR, and WA are migrating there and like 80% say they lean conservative. The free and prosperous Red States are becoming a deep red.
A lot of people from the areas of OR and WA are actively seeking to establish a new state with Idaho. Of course, those in the western part of said states along the coast are putting their blue reality blockers on and claiming everything is just swell as Portland and Seattle continue their death spirals. No threats , yet, a la Kwame as to how the states don’t and won’t allow such action.