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What Will April Jobs Numbers Reveal About New Hampshire's Economy?

Official jobs and unemployment numbers aren’t the only way to trace the recession and the recovery
Kandy Jaxx
/
Flickr
Official jobs and unemployment numbers aren’t the only way to trace the recession and the recovery

  The state is set to release new unemployment figures this week. 

New Hampshire's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 2.6 percent in March, the lowest such figure in about 16 years.

Economist Brian Gottlob of PolEcon Research says the low jobless rate as well as steady but slow growth in the labor force is proving to be a problem for some employers.

"At a 2.6 percent unemployment rate, it really gets difficult to find the kind of employees you need to expand your business," Gottlob says.

A number of New Hampshire employers say they've had difficulty finding workers with specific skillsets needed to fill their vacancies.

Gottlob says another factor in the employment picture is a continued loss of public sector jobs, even as private hiring has picked up.

The national unemployment rate remained at 5 percent in April.

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