Vermont's entry-level job ads are moving against the national trend
The share of Vermont entry-level job advertisements involving AI-exposed office work fell to 8.3 percent this year, down from 10.4 percent a year earlier, at a time when the national figure was climbing.
The numbers come from an analysis of 2.6 million cleaned U.S. entry-level job advertisements, which compared matched January to May windows in 2025 and 2026. Coresignal, the workforce data company behind it, put the national average at 13.3 percent. Vermont sits close to five points below that, near the bottom of the states the company published, and in the small group where the share fell rather than climbed.
The regional split runs north to south. Connecticut and Massachusetts both rank in the study's top ten, at 17.2 percent and 16.3 percent. Vermont and Maine both sit in the bottom ten, at 8.3 percent and 7.9 percent. Four states in one region are advertising entry-level work that looks nothing alike.
Coresignal's state-by-state entry-level breakdown notes that the states moving in the other direction tend to be small and rural, with fewer advertisements in the sample. Vermont fits that description, and its figures rest on a smaller base of postings than California's or New York's.
The likeliest explanation is the shape of the state's economy rather than anything about its exposure to technology.
Vermont's unemployment rate held at 2.6 percent in June, among the lowest in the country, according to the Vermont Department of Labor. The department's summer figures showed hiring concentrated in construction, leisure and hospitality, and local government. Those are jobs done on a site, in a building, or in front of a customer.
The state advertises comparatively few of the analyst, administrative and back-office roles the research counts as AI-exposed, because comparatively few of them are here to advertise.
The finding is easy to misread. The data measures the kind of work being advertised, not what happened to anyone. It does not show that a single worker was hired, replaced or laid off because of artificial intelligence, and a job advertisement records what an employer wanted, not why.
A low share is also not a shield. It can equally mean the state posts fewer of the office roles that have long been the ordinary route from a first job into a career. That matters most for young Vermonters who take a first job here and then look for a second one somewhere else.
For a student finishing school this year, the practical read is narrower than the national headlines suggest. The entry-level openings advertised in Vermont still lean heavily toward work that cannot be done from a laptop, which is a real short-term advantage in a year when office hiring for graduates has been weak nationally. The roles that build transferable office experience are simply thinner on the ground here, and over the past twelve months that gap widened rather than closed.
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