Illinois: Freight-Scale Economy, Small-Business Base
Illinois' Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity puts advanced manufacturing, next-generation agriculture and food processing, and transportation, distribution and logistics among the six high-growth industries in its 2024 Economic Growth Plan, which also notes that roughly a quarter of all U.S. freight traffic passes through the Chicago rail corridor. The state's business base is mostly small: the Census Bureau's 2023 County Business Patterns counts 322,415 employer establishments across Illinois, and 94.2% of them have fewer than 50 employees, including 12,465 manufacturing locations. Those are business locations, not companies, and they cover the whole state rather than the metro.
- Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity: Open for Business: Illinois 2024 Economic Growth Plan (2024 plan; retrieved 2026-10-08)
- U.S. Census Bureau: 2023 County Business Patterns: State file (cbp23st) (2023 CBP; retrieved 2026-10-05)