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ILLINOIS EMPLOYERS
ANNOUNCE 1,300 LAYOFFS IN MAY
Illinois Policy Institute
The most
recent Illinois WARN report shows 1,300 mass layoffs in May, including
513 layoffs in the manufacturing sector, up from 450 large-scale layoffs
and six manufacturing layoffs in April.
While the number of Illinois companies announcing large-scale layoffs
had declined in the first four months of 2016, May’s numbers marked a
turn for the worse.
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 Twelve Illinois employers announced 1,301 layoffs in May. Of that total, 996
came from Cook County, and 513 were in the manufacturing sector, according to
the Illinois Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, report.
While the WARN report is not reflective of the overall economy, May’s data are
less encouraging than April’s, a month which saw 450 jobs lost in large layoffs
announced by five different companies, and only six announced layoffs in the
manufacturing sector. Until May, mass layoffs had been decreasing each month
since February.
The May manufacturing losses included:
Northstar Aerospace Inc. in Bedford Park (226 jobs)
WestRock Co. in Chicago (173 jobs)
Pony Tools Inc. in Chicago (61 jobs)
Laird Technologies in Schaumburg (53 jobs)
While the state isn’t losing manufacturing jobs at the pace it did in 2015 – a
year during which Illinois lost 25 manufacturing jobs per workday on net – the
discouraging May news is a reminder that the state desperately needs reforms to
help its manufacturing sector. As long as manufacturers continue to face the
highest workers’ compensation costs in the region, the highest property taxes in
the region and a hostile lawsuit climate, job losses will persist.
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 It doesn’t help, either, when greener pastures for manufacturers
– and manufacturing workers – are just across the border. Illinois
manufacturing workers earn less than their counterparts in
neighboring Indiana, when adjusted for the cost of living. And,
while Illinois lost 6,200 manufacturing jobs on net in 2015, Indiana
gained 4,000.
The unfortunate trend throughout the first few months of 2016 is
that blue-collar and working-class jobs, including those in fields
besides manufacturing, are showing up more frequently in mass
layoffs.
These poor numbers in concentrated fields and areas should be
wake-up calls that the state needs to boost its competitiveness by
adopting reforms to strengthen blue-collar and working-class
industries.
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