Illinois companies announce over 800 layoffs in October

More than half of the month’s jobs losses occurred in the manufacturing sector.

Illinois employers announced 812 layoffs in October, with 429 manufacturing positions lost. This marks a slight increase from September, which saw 790 mass layoffs.

The numbers come from the October release of the Illinois Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, report. While WARN reports are not wholly indicative of the state of the Illinois economy, they remain a useful way to study mass layoffs in Illinois.

In Boone County, the city of Belvidere shouldered nearly half of the state’s mass-layoffs with permanent facility closures from three large employers:

• Android Belvidere II, an engine parts manufacturer – 273 layoffs
• Ventra Belvidere, LLC, an automotive parts accessories store – 89 layoffs
• Eberspaecher, a metal crown and stamping facility – 38 layoffs

Next to Boone, Cook County had the second most layoffs with 109. The losses came entirely from First Midwestern Bank downsizing its corporate division and completely closing its Hickory Hills-based operations center.

None of the companies provided event causes for the layoffs, save the Morton-based G&G Contract Logistics, Inc., which cited a lost contract as its stated reason behind leaving. However, when looking at Illinois’ toxic economic environment, the reasons are obvious why companies like Android Belvidere, Ventra Belvidere, LLC., Merisant and Eberspaecher are closing shop in the Land of Lincoln.

Illinois has the costliest worker’s compensation system in the region, highest property taxes in the nation, a growing pension crisis, costly and redundant layers of government and no statewide Right-to-Work law. All of these factors and more make Illinois an unfavorable destination for companies, especially manufacturers. The lack of reform on these key issues has led to the current state of affairs where more Illinoisans work for state or local government than in manufacturing.

But other states in the region, such as Michigan, have implemented pro-growth reforms. Michigan, like many states in the Rust Belt, experienced a downsizing in the manufacturing industry. However, in recent years the Wolverine State has passed a series of reforms that have made it more competitive for domestic manufacturing. Combined with the restructuring of the automotive industry after the Great Recession, Michigan bounced back and now has over 600,000 manufacturing jobs, adding 170,000 since the end of the Great Recession.

Cities like Belvidere rely on manufacturing to keep it alive. Without those blue-collar factory jobs, many residents would have to turn to jobs in the retail or restaurant industry and face less pay and little, if any, benefits. Illinois lawmakers must take action not only for the sake of companies, but also for the sake of workers who continue to be the ones the status quo hurts most.