Vermont unemployment rate drops to 4.4 percent in February

The Vermont Department of Labor announced today that the seasonally-adjusted statewide unemployment rate for February 2013 was 4.4 percent. This represents a decline of three-tenths of a percent from the prior month’ s estimate of 4.7 percent. The comparative national average was 7.7 percent which was down two-tenths of a percent from January.
The seasonally adjusted numbers reveal a continuing trend of lower numbers for not only the unemployment rate and number of unemployed, but also for a smaller labor force and fewer employed, both for the month and against the same time last year.
February 2013 represents the seventh consecutive month without an increase to the unemployment rate in Vermont. As of the prior month’ s data, Vermont’ s unemployment rate was the fourth lowest in the country.
‘ We were very pleased to see that the number of unemployed workers in Vermont continues to decline. This data which the department collects for this report also showed a decline in the total number of employed, but interestingly, Vermont employers are reporting an increase in jobs. We hope that job openings will continue as the stronger trend, and that Vermonters who need help finding a job will come to one of our regional offices for assistance’ , said Labor Commissioner Annie Noonan.
The Vermont seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased by three-tenths of a percent to 4.4 percent in February. The comparable rate for the United States (7.7 percent) was down two-tenths of a percent from the revised January estimate of 7.9 percent. The seasonally adjusted Vermont data for February show the Vermont civilian labor force decreased by 2,100 from the prior month estimates. The number of employed decreased by 1,000 and the number of unemployed decreased by 1,100. The over-the-month declines in the civilian labor force, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed were statistically significant.
February unemployment rates for Vermont’ s 17 labor market areas ranged from 2.6 percent in Warren-Waitsfield to 8.0 percent in Newport (note: local labor market area unemployment rates are not seasonally adjusted). For comparison, the February unadjusted unemployment rate for Vermont was 4.7 percent which reflects a five-tenths of a percent decrease from the January level and a decline of eight-tenths of a percent from a year ago.
Not Seasonally Adjusted
The preliminary ‘ not-seasonally-adjusted’ jobs estimates for February show an increase of 3,050 jobs when compared to the revised January numbers. This reported over-the-month change does not include the 1,000 job decrease between the preliminary and the revised January estimates due to the inclusion of more data. The monthly increase seen in the February numbers was predominately attributable to seasonal increases in public and private Education. The broader economic trends can be detected by focusing on the over-the-year changes in this data series. As detailed in the preliminary ‘ not seasonally adjusted’ February data, Total Private industries have increased by 1.6 percent (4,000 jobs) and Government has increased by 1.1 percent (600 jobs) within the last year.
Seasonally Adjusted
The seasonally adjusted data for February reports an increase of 1,300 jobs from the revised January data. As with the ‘ not-seasonally-adjusted’ data, this over-the-month change is from the revised January numbers which experienced a downward revision from the preliminary estimates by 1,000 jobs. The seasonally adjusted over-the-month changes in February were generally positive across all industries. Sectoral movements of note on a percentage basis include: Financial Activities (200 jobs or 1.7 percent), Manufacturing (300 jobs or 0.9 percent) and Leisure & Hospitality (200 jobs or 0.6 percent).