Jobs: Rest of the Story

Once again, the monthly press release from the VT Dept. of Labor failed to provide sufficient historical perspective. Here is the data the DoL did not show you. After regaining the jobs lost during the recession, we've gained only 3,500 net new private sector jobs in the last three years (and the annual figure has declined each year).

Vermont Net Priv. Sector Job Growth: Nov. - Nov.
91 - 92	4,100
92 - 93	6,400
93 - 94	5,200
94 - 95	5,800
95 - 96	3,700
96 - 97	5,400
97 - 98	3,000
98 - 99	8,300
99 -00	3,700
00 - 01	-600
01 - 02	-3,800
02 - 03	1,600
03 - 04	3,100
04 - 05	1,400
05 - 06	1,200
06 - 07	900

And as you can see below, net private sector job growth in VT even lags behind the otherwise weak US recovery. In four of the last five years, VT annual private sector job growth has been less than 1%.

Annual % Change in Priv. Sector Jobs: Nov. - Nov.
	VT	US
91 - 92	2.0%	0.8%
92 - 93	3.1%	2.7%
93 - 94	2.4%	3.9%
94 - 95	2.6%	2.3%
95 - 96	1.6%	2.7%
96 - 97	2.3%	3.0%
97 - 98	1.3%	2.6%
98 - 99	3.5%	2.6%
99 - 00	1.5%	1.7%
00 - 01	-0.2%	-1.8%
01 - 02	-1.5%	-0.7%
02 - 03	0.6%	-0.1%
03 - 04	1.2%	1.7%
04 - 05	0.6%	2.1%
05 - 06	0.5%	1.8%
06 - 07	0.4%	1.1%

What happened to Jim = Jobs?
Isn't it time to re-examine our policies?

Doug Hoffer
[all data is from the VT DoL, CES, seasonally adjusted]