Chicago Jobs
During December the unemployment rate in Chicago rose to 7 percent. Although this was slightly lower than the holiday season’s national average of 7.2 percent, it was still a jump from November’s 6.3 percent. It was also a significant increase from last years 4.9 percent joblessness, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES). All of this goes to show that finding jobs in Chicago has gotten more difficult recently. The state’s unemployment rate for December was 7.6 percent.
December also marked the 20th consecutive month that all 12 metropolitan areas in state saw an increase in joblessness. The Illinois cities with the highest unemployment were Rockford, where 12.5 percent of residents were without work, and Kankakee-Bradley, with a jobless rate of 10.5 percent.
“This national economic downturn has created challenges across Illinois,” said Maureen O’Donnel, who is the director of the IDES. “We continue to evaluate how best to help in these difficult times.”
December also marked the largest month of Chicago jobs lost since the beginning of the recession. When compared to the same month in 2007 there were 57,500 fewer jobs in the area.
With the way the economy is going, very few companies can afford to create new employment opportunities in Chicago. United Air, for example, recently announced that they will be moving jobs from their call-center in India to the city in order to improve the level of customer service they provide. Instead of hiring new workers, they have decided to just add the new responsibilities to the workloads take care of by already existing employees.
The work will be split between workers in offices in Chicago and Honolulu who currently handle reservations. The change will take place in April.
“More sophisticated conversations with our guests are much better suited for us to handle instead of a third-party partner,” said United Air spokeperson Robin Urbanski. “We clearly have the deep industry expertise to help our guest navigate through their options.”
The positions were originally sent to India several years ago, according to Urbanski. Many companies have been outsourcing to the country due to the pull of cheaper labor.
The company also recently announced that it will be doing away with 1,000 more jobs. This is addition to the thousands they already said that they will be cutting before the end of the year. The total now stands around 9,000 jobs to be done away with. This move is in order make up for somewhere around $5.35 billion lost by the company’s parent during the course of 2008.
In addition to all of this, the company has suggested that its customers start contacting its customer service department through e-mail or letters, instead of filing complaints via phone. The phone line is expected to be cutoff by the end of April. After this point, the reservation agents in Honolulu and Chicago will be expected to handle such issues.