Breaking Down NH’s Manufacturing Economy By County
![photo Fence posts near abandoned factory](http://stateimpact.npr.org/new-hampshire/files/2012/02/705940390_3220f4edc9_o.jpg)
Lorianne DiSabato / Flickr
The Obama Administration has singled out reviving the manufacturing sector as a major priority this year
Given that manufacturing got prominent play in the State of the State address and is a key piece of President Obama’s new jobs initiative, StateImpact’s in full-on data-slicing mode.
First, a bit of background. It’s well-known in the state’s business circles that, despite the decline of mills, manufacturing is still New Hampshire’s powerhouse industry. Smart Manufacturing/High-Technology is the state’s largest economic sector, far outpacing tourism, which is often thought of as a “signature” industry for New Hampshire.
And all the recent political buzz about manufacturing got us wondering…where are these economic juggernauts concentrated?
And it just so happens, the US Census Bureau had our back on that.
Earlier this week, we linked to just one of several interactive features on the Census’ new County Business Patterns & Demographics map. Unfortunately, this handy little tool wasn’t designed to be embedded on websites. But we highly encourage you to visit the map.
It’s a fun way to while away a bit of time.For our purposes, here’s what’s important about it: If you click on each county, and then click the “Industries” tab, you can find the top industries for each county, broken down by raw numbers and percentages. What we’ve decided to do is take that data and create a table showing how well represented manufacturing is in each county.
It’s unsurprising to us that as the state’s main population center, Hillsborough County dominates in terms of raw numbers. But this table also helps measure diversity of an area’s economy. For all that Hillsborough County has 592 factories, those facilities only make up 5.5 percent of total businesses in the area. While Sullivan County only boasts 98 factories, the manufacturing sector accounts for nearly one-in-ten businesses in that part of the state.
Manufacturing By County
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