Vermont’s unemployment rate hit 2.5 percent in January, the lowest point since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics started keeping track in 1976, according to the state Department of Labor.
The rate dropped one-tenth of one percentage point from December. The national unemployment rate was 3.8 percent in January, according to the BLS.
The shortage of workers is blamed for hindering economic growth in Vermont. In November, a report on job growth from the President’s Council of Economic Advisors ranked Vermont at the very bottom of the scale, and local economists said the worker shortage was one reason.
In a table showing labor market strength, the report, released in mid-November, showed payroll employment growth of 1.2 percent for the nation overall. Nevada was the highest at 3.4 percent growth; Vermont and Alaska tied for the bottom at around minus .1 percent.
The state Department of Economic Development is tackling the shortage of job applicants with programs and incentives aimed attracting new residents. Private businesses and industry groups have also turned to marketing themselves and their trades as a way to draw in more job applications.
“It’s like customer acquisition,” said Win Smith, the owner and president of the Sugarbush ski resort in Warren. “You’re now marketing the same way for employees as you are for guests.”
The unemployment rate varies greatly throughout Vermont. In January, the rate ranged from 2 percent in White River Junction to 5.8 percent in Derby, the Department of Labor said.
Smith estimated his payroll costs jumped 10.5 percent between the company’s last fiscal year and the current one. He attributed some of that to higher wages needed to compete with other employers for scarce applicants, and some to the cost of hosting foreign workers through the J1 visa program. Sugarbush hired 70 young people this winter through the J-1, a short-term visa program that offers work opportunities along with cultural and educational exchanges through the U.S. State Department. The J-1 workers at Sugarbush were mostly from countries in Latin and South America, including Chile, Peru and Costa Rica, according to Smith. They worked entry-level jobs including housekeeping and lift operations.
“We would not have been able to operate fully without them,” said Smith. He expects to hire at least 100 people through the J1 program next year.
The shortage of job applicants has hurt construction companies because they sometimes have to turn down jobs for lack of workers, said Matt Musgrave, director of government affairs for the Vermont Associated General Contractors. He said they’re also offering more benefits, and paying more.
“People are coming in at $18, $20 an hour to be laborers or carry signs,” he said.
The Vermont AGC has responded with an array of initiatives. Musgrave said he planned to visit his former high school in South Burlington with a colleague Tuesday to talk to students about careers in the trades.
“We’re going to talk to a group of 40 or 50 kids who weren’t intending to go to a four-year school,” he said. “They are looking for something as an alternative.”
The AGC is also supporting a bill that would require schools to teach students about careers in the trades starting in fifth grade.
It’s too late in the session for the measure, H516, to get a full slate of hearings this year, but Musgrave hopes it will be taken up next year as well. It will also require training for guidance counselors to help them identify students who might be suited to education in a technical center or in construction.
“This goes back to the 1990s, but I am hearing it today from people,” Musgrave said. “Guidance counselors in general are looking to get people into the four-year traditional college.”
