At the Vermont Solutions Summit, business leaders, policymakers, and community partners examined the scale of Vermont’s workforce challenge and opportunities to connect more people with pathways into and back into the workforce.

Participants cited roughly 5,000 graduating students each year compared with about 17,000 people leaving Vermont’s workforce. The gap underscores why Vermont cannot rely on a single pipeline from education into employment and points to the need for multiple pathways for students, career changers, displaced workers, immigrants, people in recovery, and experienced workers entering new fields.

Participants highlighted promising programs already operating in Vermont, including youth apprenticeships, early college, work-based learning, and industry exposure. The challenge is fragmentation, with access varying by school, location, or awareness of a particular program.

Retention also requires more than a job opening. Housing and healthcare costs can shape whether young Vermonters stay and whether experienced workers move here. Vermont colleges bring thousands of people into the state, but students need meaningful exposure to employers and communities if they are to picture a life here after graduation.

Heading into 2027, participants identified opportunities for a more connected approach, including statewide career navigation, trusted adults for students, replicable apprenticeships, stackable credentials, clearer transfer pathways, and adult reskilling. Participants also called for involving young people directly and measuring which local programs lead to employment and retention. The aim is to make successful pathways visible and available across Vermont while preserving the local responsiveness that made them work.