Vermont Business Magazine Weekly unemployment claims are still on the rise as holiday hiring results in holiday firing. Volatility is typical this time of year. Claims edged above numbers from the same time last year; for most weeks of 2017, including the last several months, claims have registered below the year before. For the week of December 30, 2017, there were 1,570 claims, 247 more than than they were last week and 39 more than they were a year ago. Altogether 6,134 new and continuing claims were filed, an increase of 879 from a week ago, but 1,143 fewer than a year ago.
For UI claims last week by industry, Services, which typically accounts for most claims, fell from 52 percent of the total to only 29 percent. Manufacturing saw a steep increase (21 percent from 10 percent) and Construction also increased (24 percent from 18 percent).
The Department processed 0 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08).
Vermont's unemployment rate for November was 2.9 percent. This reflects no change from the revised October and September rates (2.9 percent), as all the major indicators improved. SEE STORY.
The Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, which is a state savings account to pay for unemployment insurance claims, fell by $751,087 last week, but is up $81,240,824 from the same time last year, as claims have fallen. It now stands at $386,119,133. During the Great Recession, the Trust Fund fell into deficit and the state had to borrow money from the federal government to cover claims.
On July 1, 2017, the state reduced taxable rates for individual employers according to their experience rating. The rate reduction cut the highest UI tax rate from 8.4 percent to 7.7 percent, and the lowest rate from 1.3 percent to 1.1 percent. Additionally, July 1 marked the sunset of a provision that required claimants to wait one week between the time they were determined eligible for benefits to when they could collect those benefits.
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.
