More are working, but help is short for the jobless
The good news: In May Vermont employers created 900 more jobs than were first reported. According to revised figures released this month, there were 317,300 non-farm payroll jobs in May—up about 100 over April. The bad news? Jobs were down in June by about 1,400. Still, preliminary data show nearly 4,000 more jobs this June than in the same month in 2015.
Unemployed without benefits
More than half of unemployed Vermonters did not receive unemployment compensation in 2014. The data don’t show why. These people may have exhausted their unemployment compensation, or perhaps they didn’t qualify. Nationally, the share of unemployed workers receiving benefits has been shrinking as states seek to reduce costs.
Scant substitute for pay
Average unemployment compensation in Vermont was about $330 a week at the end of 2015. As a share of average weekly wages, that exceeded the other New England states. But across the region, average weekly compensation for jobless workers came to less than 40 percent of the states’ average weekly wages.
