This Week’s Essential StateImpact

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Our weekly roundup of this week's most eye-popping posts

Before you dash away from your desk for Memorial Day weekend, here’s a bit of Friday afternoon refreshment: Your weekly roundup of StateImpact’s Top 5 posts!

1. A Closer Look at Brewery Accidents After The Deadly Redhook Explosion: One of our most popular posts to date, we put the fatal accident at a Portsmouth brewery into context by digging into years of OSHA accident reports and federal injury stats.
2. Why NH Factories Are Struggling To Fill Jobs: By one estimate, there are 600,000 open factory jobs nationwide for skilled workers–and not enough qualified people to fill them.  We look into the “skills gap” situation in New Hampshire, how the Community College System and federal dollars come into play, and why some critics say these kinds of job training programs are a waste of money.
3. Big News For Brewers and Beer Lovers: A quick look at the implications for the House’s ‘yea’ on allowing specialty beer sales.
4. How Much Is N.H. Paying For The Freedom To Take Risks?: The Granite State’s well known for for its laid-back stance on safety legislation.  Whether motorists choose to wear seat belts or bikers strap on helmets is their prerogative.  But according to a recent report, fatal accidents and injuries carry hidden costs beyond lost lives.
5. Q&A: Why There’s More To The “Skills Gap” Than A Worker Shortage: The companion piece to “Why NH Factories Are Struggling To Fill Jobs.”  We put what’s happening with New Hampshire’s skills gap into national perspective.  Using expert voices, we delve into why large manufacturers have rising expectations for workers and why it’s hard to tell if community college-based training programs actually work.