With Vermont’s unemployment rate above 5 percent for the first time in 15 years, at least one prominent economist is predicting that the current economic downturn hasn’t hit bottom yet.
Art Woolf, a University of Vermont associate professor of economics and principal in an economics consulting firm that publishes the Vermont Economy Newsletter, says he thinks the jobless rate might rise to 6 percent in the next year.
The last time Vermont’s unemployment rate rose above 5 percent was in July of 1993, when it hit 5.1 percent.
Frank Cioffi, president of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation, says companies are feeling very uncertain right now and are holding off on new hires.