City of Essex Junction, Vt. – Governor Phil Scott today visited Vermont’s Largest Career Fair at the Champlain Valley Exposition, where he met with dozens of employers and job seekers.
The event, sponsored by Associated General Contractors (AGC) of Vermont, in partnership with Vermont's Department of Labor, the Agency of Education, the University of Vermont (UVM), and the Vermont Independent Electrical Contractors (VEIC), included over 150 employers looking to hire and attracted over 1,000 potential employees.
Prior to visiting the fair, the Governor, Labor Commissioner Mike Harrington, Acting Education Secretary Heather Bouchey and several employers delivered remarks at the Governor’s weekly press conference, focused on our demographics, workforce challenges and affordability.
A full transcript of opening remarks from Governor Scott can be found below, and you can watch the full press conference by clicking here.
Governor Scott:
Good afternoon, and thanks for being here today.
It’s good to be back at Vermont’s Largest Jobs Fair for the second year in a row, and I want to thank AGC, VEIC, UVM, the Labor Department and the Agency of Education for their work to put this together.
I also want to thank all the employers here today for all they do for Vermont and our communities.
We’re here to talk about our workforce, and the challenges we face.
I know you’ve heard me say this many times, but the single largest problem we face is our demographics and shrinking workforce.
Because if we don’t grow our workforce, we won’t have the resources we need to make critical investments in the future, or even support the programs we already have, and definitely not be able to pay for all the new programs the Legislature has in mind.
If we don’t do this right, we won’t have enough auto technicians, plumbers, electricians, or childcare providers. We won’t have contractors to build the housing we desperately need or make improvements to our infrastructure. We won’t have enough people to meet our climate goals, doing needed work like weatherization, solar, and heat pump installations.
We know there are a lot of good jobs available – tens of thousands, in fact. And if you talk with employers at the fair today, I’m sure you’ll hear the same story over and over again… they have plenty of good paying jobs, but they’re struggling to fill them.
As I’ve said, this is true in all sectors, but especially in the trades. And again, almost every problem we want to solve depends on us having the people to do the work.
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In a few minutes, Commissioner Harrington will talk about Labor’s work to connect businesses and job seekers around the state.
Turning the tide also means educating our youth about opportunities in the trades, and how lucrative those careers can be.
Secretary Bouchey will go into more detail about our work around career technical education.
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But I also want to talk about other things we need, like housing, safe communities, childcare, paid family leave, and most importantly, making Vermont more affordable.
Most of these are goals I share with the Legislature.
But we have huge differences in how we get there. And unlike theirs, my proposals don’t make our affordability problems worse.
Let’s take housing first. If we’re going to attract more workers to our state, they need decent, affordable housing to live in.
I’ve made this a priority since my first term, and between our historic housing bond, and the hundreds of millions we’ve invested in federal dollars, money is no longer the issue.
But if housing is truly the crisis many campaigned on, we need regulatory reform to make it happen.
If we don’t modernize Act 250, we won’t be able to build enough housing to meet the demand, and employers here today won’t be able to recruit new Vermonters.
As I’ve said, if the Legislature continues to ignore Act 250 reforms, I don’t believe they can say they’re serious about solving our housing crisis… which means we can’t solve our workforce crisis.
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Next, are two issues that have received a lot of attention in the media: childcare and paid family leave.
Proponents argue that both will help our workforce crisis, by attracting more people to Vermont, and increasing access to affordable childcare which will allow more parents to stay in or enter the workforce.
And here's the thing: I agree! It’s not the whole solution, but it will help.
That’s why I’ve proposed historic investments in childcare – over $56 million – which would provide benefits to another 4,000 kids.
And by the way, that’s on top of the investments we already make, which I’ve already doubled since taking office.
My Administration is also moving forward with a family and medical leave plan for State employees. And within the next year employers will be able to opt-in to cover their employees.
Now, the difference between my approach and the one passed by the House is that mine is voluntary, doesn’t require us to hire 60 new employees, is fully capitalized, doesn’t make Vermont less affordable, and is ready to go. We wouldn’t have to wait 3-4 years.
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Making Vermont more affordable is important because right now we’re one of the highest taxed, and least affordable states in the country. That makes it incredibly hard for us to recruit the people we need to come here, and it also drives Vermonters to more affordable states.
For six years, I’ve advocated for tax relief. Unfortunately, those haven’t received much attention in the Legislature.
But we’ve at least prevented the problem from getting worse. In my six years as Governor, we’ve done a pretty good job holding the line on taxes and fees.
Unfortunately, that progress is in jeopardy this year, because the Legislature is currently considering a $117 million payroll tax for mandatory paid leave, $100 million payroll tax for childcare, $20 million in DMV fee increases, $30 million in property tax increases for school meals. And the millions in upfront costs for the Affordable Heat Standard… not to mention future cost increases for heating fuels.
And just yesterday, the House Ways and Means Committee put forward a proposal to raise every single income tax bracket by 50-basis points, and also raising our corporate income tax to be the highest in the nation.
As I said, we’re already one of the highest taxed states in the nation, so raising taxes is the last thing we should be doing.
But that’s what’s at risk this session, and it’s happening at a time when we have record state surpluses.
And what’s being lost in the debate is we can accomplish our shared goals, without making it more expensive to live here.
This is where my focus will continue to be for the remaining weeks of the session, but I can’t do it alone.
I need you to make your voices heard.
This isn’t about being against big ideas, it’s about doing them in a responsible, affordable, sustainable way that sets us up for success in the future.