Shannon Barsotti, Bennington’s Community Development Director, was one of the presenters at one of the panel discussion held during the Southern Vermont Economic Summit. She gave a description and explanation about the Bennington High School project to convert the former school building into a site for housing and a community center.
Credit Andrew McKeever
DOVER — More than 300 business and community leaders filled the Somerset Ballroom in the Grand Summit Resort at Mt. Snow on Tuesday, May 20, for the eighth annual Southern Vermont Economic Summit.
The theme of this year’s gathering, hosted and organized by the Brattleboro Development Credit Union and the Bennington County Regional Commission, was “Adapt and Thrive.” Coming changes in the labor market, workforce demographics and technology, especially those driven by artificial intelligence or “AI,” will create some challenges in the economic sector, said keynote address speaker Josh Wright, the executive vice-president at Lightcast, a consulting firm which specializes in labor market data and analysis.
An aging population, declining birthrates and a smaller workforce population are creating a double disruption around who will do the work of the future and how it will get done, he said.
“It’s creating a moment we haven’t seen before,” he said, noting how nationally we are on a pathway from talent abundance to talent scarcity.
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