Vermont Business Magazine Weekly unemployment claims fell steeply last week, as claims spike and fall during the holidays. While this is typical for this time of year, claims are actually lower than they were last year. Most industrial sectors saw at least some decrease for the week, with Construction seeing the biggest increase while Manufacturing fell to under 40 claims.
The holidays typically produce wild swings in unemployment claims, because of an increase in hiring in the Service sector, from retail to delivery-related businesses, and then an abrupt round of layoffs. It is also represents the end of the construction season.
For the week of December 10, 2016, there were 666 claims, down 552 from the previous week's total and 53 fewer than than they were a year ago.
Altogether 5,101 new and continuing claims were filed, a decrease of 1,022 from a week ago, and 152 fewer than a year ago.
The Department processed 0 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08).
Vermont's unemployment rate fell one-tenth to 3.2 percent in November, as the labor force fell and total employment increased by a small amount, along with a decrease in the number of unemployed. SEE STORY.
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
NOTE: Employment (nonfarm payroll) - A count of all persons who worked full- or part-time or received pay from a nonagricultural employer for any part of the pay period which included the 12th of the month. Because this count comes from a survey of employers, persons who work for two different companies would be counted twice. Therefore, nonfarm payroll employment is really a count of the number of jobs, rather than the number of persons employed. Persons may receive pay from a job if they are temporarily absent due to illness, bad weather, vacation, or labor-management dispute. This count is based on where the jobs are located, regardless of where the workers reside, and is therefore sometimes referred to as employment "by place of work." Nonfarm payroll employment data are collected and compiled based on the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey, conducted by the Vermont Department of Labor. This count was formerly referred to as nonagricultural wage and salary employment.
