Vermont’s unemployment rate held steady in January at 4.1 percent, officials announced Tuesday. According to seasonally adjusted data, the January unemployment rate is the same as it was in January 2014, though the labor force has shrunk by 700 jobs over the past year.
The January numbers came after state labor officials spent two months revising employment statistics from the entire 2014 year. Economic and Labor Market Information Chief Mathew Barewicz said those revisions brought good news.
“When we added in additional information, which is collected through census data, we understood that we were underreporting the number of jobs in Vermont for the latter part of last year,” he said.
The revised data, Barewicz said, showed Vermont is reaching new milestones in its recovery from the recession.
“We’ve gone seven months in a row above pre-recessionary levels of employment in the state of Vermont,” he said.
The workforce shrinking by 700 from January 2014 to January 2015, Barewicz said, is part of a larger trend.
In addition to demographic changes in the state – namely the “baby boomer” generation reaching retirement age – Barewicz said the emergence from the recession could lead to further contraction of the workforce.
“The recession forced people who were planning on retiring to not retire and it forced individuals into the labor market out of economic necessity due to the tough economic times,” he said.
As things have improved, Barewicz said, those who delayed retirement are now ending their careers and other people who put off post-secondary education or who went to work instead of staying home with family are returning to those priorities.
Employment data for February is due out by the end of March.
