Manufacturers’ News, Inc. — Manufacturing employment in Illinois inched up over the past year, reports the 2015 Illinois Manufacturers Directory^®, a manufacturers database and directory published by Manufacturers’ News, Inc. (MNI). According to data collected by MNI, Illinois manufacturers added 2,397 jobs or a half percent, from November 2013 to November 2014, lagging behind the 1.4% national average gain as reported by the Labor Department for the same time period.

Manufacturers’ News reports Illinois is now home to 18,071 manufacturers employing 810,503 workers.

“Faced with stiff competition from neighboring states and high business costs, Illinois’ industrial sector has struggled to come back from the recession,” says Tom Dubin, President of the Evanston, IL-based publishing company, which has been surveying industry since 1912. “However, with Chicago fast becoming a hub for high-tech manufacturing and start-up enterprises, as well as the state’s solid infrastructure and educated workforce, Illinois manufacturing may be at a turning point.”

MNI data indicates that although Illinois still continues to lose jobs to its neighbors, the rate at which manufacturers are migrating to other states seems to be slowing. This year’s survey shows a loss of 471 Illinois jobs to other states, half the average yearly loss of 1,060 jobs MNI recorded from 2009-2014.

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The database publisher recorded its first employment gain for Chicago in over a decade, with jobs up 1.5%, following a loss of nearly 25% over the past ten years. Chicago currently accounts for 107,311 industrial jobs.

Manufacturing jobs rose a half percent in Northeast Illinois, with jobs in Cook County unchanged, and employment up a half percent in the collar counties.

Established in 1912, Manufacturers’ News, Inc. is the nation’s oldest and largest publisher of industrial information. MNI offers a variety of solutions to help customers connect with 430,000 U.S. manufacturers and suppliers, from print directories to online subscriptions. MNI’s industrial database subscription service EZ Select (http://www.ezselect.com) allows users to tap into a live interactive database of manufacturers, while its industrial search engine IndustryNet (http://www.industrynet.com) connects buyers and suppliers and allows users to view profiles and obtain competitive quotes. MNI’s print directories include in-depth profiles of every manufacturer in the U.S. For more information, contact Manufacturers’ News, Inc. 847-864-7000. http://www.manufacturersnews.com