N.H. Unemployment Continues to Rise
By Riley Yates
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2002–Hard times in New Hampshire are continuing, with close to 3,700 people in the state losing their jobs in August, according to studies released this month by federal and state agencies.
The seasonally adjusted state unemployment rate leapt half a percentage point to 4.7 percent last month, the reports said. New Hampshire’s rate remains below the 5.7 percent national unemployment rate, however.
The biggest losses in the state came from manufacturing, which saw 1,000 jobs cut in August, according to a recent study by the New Hampshire Employment Security’s Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau (ELMIB).
So far this year, 3,900 New Hampshire manufacturing workers have been laid off, the study said.
High-tech jobs also have been hit hard, said Don Sheffield, research analyst for ELMIB. Regionally, Sheffield said, the hits to this industry mean that the Nashua and Manchester areas have seen the highest unemployment rate increases.
Unemployment in the Nashua area went up 18 percent, from 5,790 to 6,830. In Manchester it climbed 13.7 percent, from 4,540 to 5,160, according to an ELMIB regional report, which does not include seasonal adjustments such as jobs lost when the summer tourism season ends.
Sheffield pointed to several regions that do not seem badly affected by the nation’s economic downturn or that appear to be on the road to improvement.
Lebanon, because of stable employment at Dartmouth University and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, has retained unemployment rates of about 1.4 percent for the past year, he said.
Berlin, Sheffield said, has seen its economy improve substantially since May, when Nexfor, a Toronto, Ontario-based company, bought a local paper mill that had closed in August 2001 and started rehiring workers.
Unemployment rates that were about 14 percent in Berlin in January, Sheffield said, have now decreased to about 6.9 percent.
“While the rate may look high,” he said, “it’s an improving picture up there.”
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
