* CBS 2…

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates 18,920 new unemployment claims were filed during the week of May 17 in Illinois, according to the DOL’s weekly claims report released Thursday. […]

Illinois’ estimated claims are among 406,000 total claims filed across the country last week, the lowest so far during the pandemic.

There were 17,530 new unemployment claims were filed during the week of May 10 in Illinois.

There were 18,355 new unemployment claims filed during the week of May 3 in Illinois.

* Meanwhile…

According to Fitch, total employment through March was still down 6.7 percent in Illinois compared to January 2020, just before the pandemic really hit. That’s more than in Texas, where the total number of jobs was off 3.6 percent, or Florida, down 5.7 percent.

But it’s better than Pennsylvania, down 6.7 percent; California, off 8.6 percent, and definitely New York, with total employment down 10 percent.

Fitch suggests the reason isn’t tax policy but the nature of the economies in specific states and how they reacted to the pandemic. Job losses in California and New York were much more concentrated than in Illinois in the leisure and transportation sectors, and those two states had tighter and longer lockdowns than Illinois did.

That concentration will slow their recovery going forward, since California and New York have “a much higher share of business and international travel” than Illinois does, Fitch notes.

* Center Square…

Unemployment will not fall back to 4.3%, which is Fitch Ratings’ estimate of the natural rate, until the 4th quarter of next year.

Olu Sonola, senior director with Fitch Ratings, said the huge shock to the labor-intensive leisure and transport industries hit labor demand hard and the recovery will be slow.

“The outsized effect that the pandemic had on the leisure and hospitality and transportation sector and our expectation is that sector will be a drag and we won’t see a full recovery there until 2024,” Sonola said.