Knox County had an unemployment rate of 8.8 percent in January, while just Galesburg had a 9.8 percent rate. This represents more than a doubling of the county and city’s rates last January. There are about 1,400 fewer people employed in the county than there were last January. 1,300 of those lost jobs were specifically within Galesburg. There are about 400 fewer employed in Warren, 1,000 in Fulton, and 1,500 in Henry County. Zooming out on Illinois, the state has an 8.8 percent unemployment rate and has about 500,000 fewer employed workers than last year. Illinois’ West Central Region has the lowest unemployment rate among the state’s economic development regions. That was very rare before the pandemic. The difficulty of conducting business in a densely populated area has the general Chicago region lagging in employment.