Public Assets Institute After years of steady growth, the number of Vermonters working fell below pre-pandemic levels in late 2025.
It took more than three years for Vermont employment to return to normal in the wake of Covid. By early 2024, the number of Vermonters working exceeded the number employed before the crisis. Monthly employment reached an all-time high in January 2025, at 348,340. Then it dropped every month through November.1
Employment is a count of individuals who are working, including those who are self-employed. The number of people working is different from the count of jobs. For example, one individual can hold more than one job. While the number of working Vermonters dropped in 2025, employers did increase the number of jobs between December 2024 and November 2025. Still, Vermont has not recovered the jobs lost during the pandemic.
Vermont’s unemployment rate up one-tenth to 2.6 percent in November | Vermont Business Magazine
This is our first jobs report since September.
We had been publishing a jobs report every month since July of 2009. Each month we look at U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data from the previous month and call attention to Vermont trends or anomalies or items of interest in the areas of workers, wages, and jobs.
Because of the federal government shutdown last fall, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish state data for October, and the release of the November data was delayed. Today’s report is based on the delayed November data.
Going forward, the schedule of data releases is not entirely clear, but we’ll be working to bring you the information that is essential to understanding the world we live in.
January 13, 2026. Montpelier, Vermont. Public Assets Institute
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