Vermont Business Magazine Weekly unemployment claims fell again last week to a very low level, as the trend that began in mid-August continues. Overall, claims have edged down for the last seven weeks. After running marginally higher in 2016 than in 2015 for most of the year, they are now below last year's numbers. For the week of October 1, 2016, there were 328 claims, down 25 from the previous week's total and 24 fewer than they were a year ago. By industry, claims were slightly lower from last week, except for small increase in Construction, as Services, as usual, reported the most claims with 48 percent of the total.
Altogether 2,889 new and continuing claims were filed, a decrease of 102 from a week ago, and 138 fewer than a year ago.
The Department processed 0 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08).
Vermont's unemployment rate rose one-tenth to 3.3 percent in August, as the labor force and total employment decreased, along with an increase in the number of unemployed. Overall this was a slightly worse report than for June or July but only marginally so. SEE STORY.
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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.
