Vermont Leads the Nation as Jobs Return

Vermont’s job growth in January was the best in the nation, according to numbers released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Seasonally adjusted, non-farm jobs rose 1.8 percent from December 2010 to January 2011. The state also had the second biggest 12-month increase in the country: 2.7 percent. Vermont had 5,300 more jobs in January than a month earlier; 8,100 more than in January 2010. Unemployment inched down one-tenth of a point from the previous month, to 5.7 percent in January. With 303,900 jobs reported, Vermont has restored nearly two-thirds of the jobs lost since the start of the recession in December 2007. The private sector saw most of the job growth.

Last Year Was Better Than We Thought
March is the month when the BLS recalibrates its numbers. Revised 2010 figures released today show that Vermont had, on average, about 2,500 more jobs each month last year than originally reported. Vermont employers reported an average of about 295,000 non-farm jobs each month last year. The chart shows how much the original monthly totals were adjusted, up or down, as a result of the BLS’s annual recalibration.

But It’s Still 1989 for Many Vermonters
The Great Recession has been hard on average Vermonters, but the problems for low- and middle-income households date back more than few years. Median household income—half the state’s households have a higher income and half lower—was $50,619 in 2009. After adjusting for inflation, that was just 2 percent higher than median household income had been 20 years earlier. In other words, a median Vermont household in 2009 was trying to get by on nearly the same income as a comparable household in 1989.

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Download a PDF of the jobs brief.