Best Of StateImpact: NH Green Jobs Growth Picture Unclear

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Energy is just one facet of the green economy

Late last July, StateImpact New Hampshire quietly launched our new website.  Our mission –handed down from NHPR and NPR, its partner in the new StateImpact project–is to examine business and the economy in the Granite State, and how government policy affects both.

And while soft launches give websites the chance to find their feet and slowly build up a nice, steady audience…some of the really good stuff you turn out early on just doesn’t get seen.

So as we wrap up 2011, we’ve decided to bring some of our best–and most relevant–StateImpact stories up to the forefront.

And we start with our very first piece of in-depth coverage:  NH Green Jobs Growth Picture Unclear.

Here’s the lead:

“As the economy continues to limp along toward recovery, “green jobs” has become a buzz phrase, often tossed out as a panacea for our economic ails. But compared to the rest of the nation, New Hamphire’s share of this sector doesn’t exactly stand out.

In a study released earlier this month, researchers found that from 2003 to 2010, New Hampshire’s green jobs industry grew at an average of 3.5 percent a year, outpacing the rest of New England.  But the result of that growth was lackluster.  Only two percent of the state’s workforce holds down a green job, which places New Hampshire square in the middle of the national average.

Put another way: New Hampshire is less of a green economy leader than other states, and more like a student who just manages to raise their ‘D’ grade to a ‘C’ in the last weeks of the semester.”

You can catch the full story here.