Weekly unemployment claims in Vermont decreased for the second straight week, as March results remained slightly higher than February. Last week there were 884 new regular benefit claims for Unemployment Insurance in Vermont last week. This is a decrease of 75 from the week before and are 39 more than last year's total.
Altogether 10,141 new and continuing claims were filed, a decrease of 270 from a week ago and 2,171 fewer than a year ago. The Department also processed 1,501 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08), 16 fewer than a week ago. In addition, there were 731 Second Tier claims for benefits processed under the EUC08 program, which is 23 more than the week before. The Unemployment Weekly Report can be found at:http://www.vtlmi.info/. Previously released Unemployment Weekly Reports and other UI reports can be found at:http://www.vtlmi.info/lmipub.htm#uc
Meanwhile, US claims also continued to fall.In the week ending March 17, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 348,000, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 353,000. The 4-week moving average was 355,000, a decrease of 1,250 from the previous week's revised average of 356,250.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.6 percent for the week ending March 10, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week's revised rate of 2.7 percent.
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 10 was 3,352,000, a decrease of 9,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 3,361,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,385,750, a decrease of 13,000 from the preceding week's revised average of 3,398,750.
Vermont's unemployment rate fell two-tenths to 5.0 percent in January. See storyHERE.