The outlook is improving for Vermont job-seekers
There was good news on the jobs front in 2022, according to data just released by the Vermont Department of Labor. Last year, the state counted over 9,000 net additional jobs covered by Unemployment Insurance (UI). 1
Every county except Franklin saw growth. This was the second record-setting year in a row; Vermont added more than 8,000 jobs in 2021. In the previous two decades, Vermont had never gained more than 4,000 jobs in a single year.
The increase brought the average number of UI-covered payroll jobs to 301,066 in 2022, still about 9,600 jobs shy of the 2019 pre-pandemic level. Vermont was one of 23 states that by 2022 had not recovered all jobs lost during the pandemic. Still, total U.S. covered payroll jobs in 2022 exceeded those in 2019.
THIS MONTH
The number of Vermonters out of work and actively seeking jobs dropped for the seventh straight month in May. The unemployment rate decreased to 2.1 percent, the same rate as in January 2020, before the pandemic. Meanwhile, the number of Vermonters employed rose for the seventh month in a row. But there were still about 6,000 fewer people working last month than before the pandemic.
- The monthly jobs number, ordinarily reported in Public Assets’ briefs, is not a count but an estimate, which comes from a survey of employers and includes some jobs not covered by UI. Those estimates are not available by county. [↩]
