Public Assets Institute > Policy Areas > Family Economic Security > No Respite In the Rise of Unemployment

No Respite In the Rise of Unemployment

F1-MJB063Vermont’s unemployment rate rose for the fourth straight month in September, to 4.4 percent. A year earlier, the jobless rate stood at 4.5 percent. A temporary rise in unemployment can be a positive sign if it means more people are moving into the labor force to look for work. In September, however, the size of Vermont’s labor force did not change, while 1,000 people lost their jobs.T1-MJB063

 

 

 

F2-MJB063Where the jobs are
In 2013, three-quarters of Vermont workers earned salaries or wages from a private business—either for-profit or non-profit—according to recent Census data. Just under 10 percent of Vermont’s 323,000 workers were self-employed. Most of the remainder—14 percent—worked for federal, state, and local government. A small fraction, less than 0.5 percent, were unpaid family workers.

 

No room at the daycare
One measure of the need for high-quality child care to support working Vermonters is the fact that 88,000 children—almost 75 percent of those under F3-MJB06318—live in households where all their parents work. Almost 25,000 of those children are under 6. Meanwhile, according to the latest survey of regulated child care providers, registered homes and licensed facilities can serve only about 19,300 children.

*Both parents in two-parent families or custodial parent in single-parent households.

 

pdficonPDF Version