PUTNEY — Buoyed by the success of the state’s remote worker program, which garnered millions of social media impressions and drew some new residents to Vermont, the state Agency of Commerce and Community Development is now mulling over a plan to pay companies for recruiting workers to the Green Mountains.
Brett Long, deputy commissioner of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, said Thursday the department is contemplating incentives for companies to recruit workers, which will be one of the department’s legislative priorities in the coming year.
“It’s still in the development stage; it’s among the legislative priorities that we are contemplating,” he said. Long said the program would probably be tied in with the state’s VEGI, or Vermont Employment Growth Incentive, program. VEGI disburses grants to companies that demonstrate the money will help them to grow.
“We would propose to the Legislature that there be a pilot program to essentially do something similar to the worker incentive to businesses,” said Long, in an interview with VTDigger in Putney, where Long was attending a meeting of the state workforce development board. “The business could potentially get an incentive for recruiting workers to Vermont.”
Vermont made headlines around the world in 2017 when lawmakers approved a program to reimburse people up to $10,000 if they moved to the state to take a remote job. The state’s population is older than the national average and is declining or stable in some places, not growing. According to 2018 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, populations dropped in the three Northeast Kingdom counties of Caledonia, Essex, and Orleans, and in the four southern Vermont counties of Bennington, Rutland, Windham and Windsor.
This population drop presents serious problems for the state’s economy, and the administration of Gov. Phil Scott, lawmakers, and private groups have been working for several years to come up with solutions. Vermont’s unemployment rate has been stuck at a record low of 2.1% since June, lower than the national average of 3.7%. Business leaders often say that finding qualified workers is the most difficult part of their job and is suppressing business growth.
The Putney meeting where Long spoke was one of a series that the Vermont Workforce Board is holding around the state to help businesses and various state training providers find ways to steer more Vermonters toward the skills they need to take Vermont jobs.
The idea of paying people to move to Vermont for remote jobs was new and risky when it was raised in the 2017-2018 legislative session, and its supporters have come under a volley of criticism from people who say tax money should be going to workers who are already established within the borders. But last year, lawmakers extended the program with a slightly different version that repays up to $7,500 in moving expenses for people who move to Vermont to take any job in the state.
Since then, it has highlighted the stories of people who chose to move to the state because of the reimbursement, or who learned of Vermont through the boost in publicity that followed the passage of the remote worker program.
The agency has spent $320,834 to reimburse 84 new Vermont remote workers between Jan. 1 and Sept. 15 this year, according to a report it released Oct. 1. The average grant was $3,819. Seventy percent of the grantees were under the age of 40, and 95% were college graduates, ACCD said. The agency said 31% worked in information technology, 13% worked in management, 8% worked in writing and editing, and 6% each worked in finance and sales.
The new program that was passed last year, where new workers can be reimbursed up to $7,500 for their moving expenses, starts Jan. 1.
A few other states and regions have recently started programs that pay people to move to areas where workers are needed. Many of the regional programs, in states like Virginia and Washington, offer tax credits to employers who promote or allow telecommuting, but they are aimed at easing traffic congestion.
Long acknowledged the criticism from Vermonters when he spoke about the proposal Thursday.
“We certainly have gotten a lot of feedback when the remote worker program was initially launched that businesses would like the opportunity to have people come to Vermont to work for their businesses, not just the remote working piece,” he said. For that reason, he said his department advocated successfully for the second piece, which pays $5,000 for people who take any Vermont job.
“The next potential step is to have the business potentially get an incentive to do that recruitment,” he said.
