{"id":12366,"date":"2012-10-31T22:22:41","date_gmt":"2012-11-01T02:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/?p=12366"},"modified":"2012-11-02T12:05:21","modified_gmt":"2012-11-02T16:05:21","slug":"are-granite-staters-better-off-than-four-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/10\/31\/are-granite-staters-better-off-than-four-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Granite Staters Better Off Than Four Years Ago? Depends On Your Job"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post has an Infographic!<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

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In his acceptance speech at the GOP convention, Mitt Romney asked American voters \u201care you better off than you were four years ago when President Obama was elected?\u201d The President responded with this: \u201cwe are absolutely better off than we were when I was sworn in and we were losing 800,000 jobs in a month.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cBetter-off\u201d can be measured in any number of ways, from mood to consumer-confidence. But job security is a good one.<\/p>\n

Of course, your job security has a lot to do with what sector you work in. \u00a0Let\u2019s break it down:<\/p>\n

Health Care<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"trent\"<\/div>\n

If you work in health care, you should be feeling pretty good. Health care is a major economic engine for New Hampshire, and represents 23% of total economic activity. Although job growth has slowed since 2009, that field has not seen any job loss despite the recession. However, the health care industry\u2019s long-term boom is due in part to the spiraling cost of care.\u00a0 If state and federal policymakers can begin to control those costs, this industry\u2019s growth will continue to slow.<\/p>\n

In the last budget, the state legislature cut $130 million in Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals.\u00a0 This may be one factor putting a damper on job growth in the health care.\u00a0 At least, that is what the hospitals argued at the time. \u00a0Dennis Delay at the Center for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) says this may have played a part in the sustained pause in job growth among the state\u2019s hospitals.<\/p>\n

Manufacturing<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"trent\"<\/div>\n

Manufacturing jobs have been declining since the 1980s.\u00a0 Delay says this trend is simply the nature of the industry: as firms invest in increasingly efficient technology, they can increase productivity without employing more people. That\u2019s made manufacturing jobs more scarce, more technical, and better paying. So, Delay says, \u201cif you can get a job in manufacturing, it\u2019s a good one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the overall downward trend, the recession has been unexpectedly good to manufacturing. \u00a0In 2011, New Hampshire added 816 jobs \u2013 most of which were in the manufacturing of computers and primary metals. This was the first time in 10 years the state saw significant growth in this sector. And that modest growth is expected to continue.<\/p>\n

So the bottom line for those in manufacturing? \u00a0You may not be as well off as you were\u00a0four<\/em>\u00a0years ago, but you are better off than you were\u00a0two<\/em>\u00a0years ago \u2013 and that\u2019s something.<\/p>\n

Hospitality<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"trent\"<\/div>\n

Although hit hard initially by the recession, this sector has been growing steadily in New Hampshire since 2009. Unlike manufacturing, the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors can\u2019t invest in more productive technology. They have to hire workers in order to grow. Because of that, these sectors tend to recover first.\u00a0\u00a0 Today, New Hampshire has 3,935 more jobs in the hospitality sector than it did four years ago, and 1,776 more jobs than it has had at any time in the last twelve years.<\/p>\n

Business Services<\/strong><\/p>\n

This industry includes financial consultants, engineering firms, temporary employment firms, payroll and other professional services.\u00a0 It is a high-wage sector with a growing workforce. Although the sector took an initial hit with the recession, it recovered quickly as firms in other sectors laid off salaried employees, and began relying more on unsalaried contractors.\u00a0 \u00a0After the recession, as firms hired back salaried workers, jobs numbers did slow. \u00a0But overall, consulting and business services are likely to handily return to pre-recession growth rates.<\/p>\n

State Government<\/strong><\/p>\n

Interestingly, state government is the only sector we looked at in which job security is inarguably worse than it was four years ago.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Initially, the recession meant growth for the public sector. There was a higher demand for public services as Granite Staters found themselves in need of assistance.\u00a0 Additionally, stimulus funds from the federal government made their way to state government.\u00a0 Now, New Hampshire lawmakers are trying to balance the budget, and Congress is trying to control the nation\u2019s spiraling debt. As a result, the public sector is taking a hit \u2013 especially in New Hampshire, which lost about 1,000 state government jobs in the last year.<\/p>\n

New Homes<\/strong><\/p>\n

Those who rely on the housing market for employment \u2013 construction workers, builders, and real estate agents — are doing no worse today than they were four years ago. That\u2019s because the housing market began its decline in New Hampshire back in 2006. While the decline in home sales began to stabilize in 2008, efforts by the federal government to stimulate growth with the first and second-time home-buyers tax credit had an unremarkable effect on home sales and residential construction in the state.<\/p>\n

Although New Hampshire did see a decline in home sales and new home construction, the state didn\u2019t actually have much of a bubble to begin with. That\u2019s because the state\u2019s housing boom and bust had already occurred in the 1980s. In 1986, New Hampshire\u2019s new housing permits peaked at 18,015 new homes built. When the rest of the country was experiencing an enormous housing boom in the 2000s, New Hampshire was building fewer than 9,000 homes a year. This didn\u2019t, however, keep the state from seeing a major decline in home sales between 2004 and 2008.<\/p>\n

Like the rest of the country, New Hampshire real estate agents, construction workers, and builders are now waiting for what is known as the \u201cshadow inventory,\u201d a backlog in available real-estate, to sell — so that home prices and sales numbers can begin to rise again.<\/p>\n

That might not be so far off, Dennis Delay says.\u00a0 \u201cYou could see a housing-led recovery in late 2013, early 2014.\u201d\u00a0 Housing prices and interest rates are low, and \u201cyou have a lot of pent-up demand\u2026 too many 20- and 30-somethings living with their parents who would like to get into their own place.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post has an Infographic! In his acceptance speech at the GOP convention, Mitt Romney asked American voters \u201care you better off than you were four years ago when President Obama was elected?\u201d The President responded with this: \u201cwe are absolutely better off than we were when I was sworn in and we were losing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":12406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[474,51,53],"tags":[384,132,571,501],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}