The Illinois Department of Employment Security has announced that the state unemployment rate fell 1/2 percent to 6.9% in November based on preliminary data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and released by the IDES. The state unemployment rate was .02% higher than the national unemployment rate of 6.7% for November and was up 3.2% from the rate of 3.7% in November of 2019. The jobless figures for individual counties across the state including Lawrence and others in southeastern Illinois are not yet available from the IDES.