Weekly unemployment claims keep edging down

Vermont Business Magazine Weekly unemployment claims continued to fall last week as they have since spiking after Christmas. Claims in 2015 generally were lower than in 2014, but since the holiday season they have been generally running ahead of the prior year until last week. For the week of January 30, 2016, there were 635 claims, down 118 from the previous week's total and 43 fewer than they were a year ago. By industry, claims were down for most categories but increased slightly for Services.

unemployment rate & jobs, seasonally adjusted, chartsAltogether 7,374 new and continuing claims were filed, a decrease of 131 from a week ago, and 717 fewer than a year ago.

The Department processed 0 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08).

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

Vermont's unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent in December, as the labor force and total employment fell, along with a decreasein the number of unemployed.SEESTORY.

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.