Burlington, Vermont Named “TechHire City” by The White House
What a big week for Vermont…
On Wednesday, March 9th, at a press conference in Burlington, Vermont, Executive Director Michael Schirling, of BTV Ignite, announced that the City of Burlington has been named a White House “TechHire” city, which is part of an initiative to expand opportunities for young Americans to get trained and placed into well-paying tech jobs.
The city of Burlington and BTV Ignite “will partner with local educational institutions and employers to train and employ 75 tech workers in 2016 and 400 tech workers through 2020. Key employers, workforce intermediaries, and training partners include the Vermont HITEC Institute for American Apprenticeship at Burlington College, Champlain College, the University of Vermont (UVM), Vermont Technical College, Community College of Vermont, the UVM Medical Center, the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce, and Vermont Technology Alliance,” stated Schirling.
The TechHire initiative was launched in March of 2015, as a “bold multi-sector effort and call to action to empower Americans with the skills they need, through universities and community colleges, but also nontraditional approaches like ‘coding bootcamps’ and high-quality online courses that can rapidly train workers for a well-paying job, often in just a few months,” stated President Obama. “The TechHire initiative will help connect employers with skilled workers, based on skills rather than résumés. It turns out, it doesn’t matter where you learned code, it just matters how good you are in writing code, Obama said. If you can do the job, you should get the job.”
And that’s not the only good news for workers in Vermont…
Earlier in the week, Governor Shumlin’s signature ended a ten year campaign at the state house, to pass paid sick leave legislation. “Under the bill, Vermonters who work full time would be guaranteed at least three paid sick days from work each year, increasing to five days off starting in 2019,” stated WPTZ.com. It is said that an estimated 60,000 workers will get time paid off from work now. Beginning in January, most full-time and part-time employees will begin acquiring paid leave benefits, no matter the size of the workplace.
Lastly, to top it all off, Burlington was recently named “the third hippest mid-sized city in America!”
Looking to relocate? Maybe it’s time to move to Vermont!
