The state's latest unemployment figures hold some surprising news.
The highest rates are not in the biggest cities, or the most rural communities.
Instead, the highest rates can be found in towns right along I-93, on the border with Massachusetts.
New Hampshire Public Radio's David Darman has more.
The unemployment rate in Salem and Plaistow was 7.2 percent in May.
Its nearly double the statewide average, which stands just below 4 percent.
Cliff Sinnott is the executive director of the Rockingham Planning Commission.
He says Salem and Plaistow's rates are higher because so many workers there commute to jobs in the Bay State.
the typical percentage of people commuting to massachusetts is between ... 50 and 60 percent whereas the... rest of the county, its typical to 30 percent. and that's a pretty big difference.
Away from the state border, unemployment rates are lower.
Manchester's rate is 4.4 percent, despite the Jac Pac plant closing that shed 550 jobs.
Lebanon's rate is super low, hovering just above 1 percent.
Even Berlin's rate has fallen under 4 percent, as Fraser Papers recalled workers to its reopened pulp mill.
The rate in Massachusetts has fallen from more than 6 percent in January, to 5 percent in May.
But the Lawrence metropolitan rate has remained quite high, at 7.4 percent.
The Lawrence area includes southern New Hampshire.
Dennis Delay is an economist with the Workforce Opportunity Council.
He says U.S. Census data shows many Salem, Plaistow and Seabrook commuters head to jobs in the Lawrence area.
the interesting thing about that is that if you look at the commuting data that folks in rockingham county aren't really going to work in boston largely, they're going to work in middlesex county and essex county so there pretty much....headed to, the largest percentage of them are headed to the north shore, lawrence, lowell, worcester, well, not quite worcester.
Census data also shows that more than 35 percent of commuters who head into Massachusetts work in managerial, technical or professional positions.
And many of the people who have lost their jobs used to work for large corporations.
Marie Cappello is the executive director of the Rockingham Economic Development Corporation.
She says thousands of people have been laid off during plant closings and downsizings that have come in waves.
you take the raytheons, the western electrics, and the lucents, those kind of plants that have a lot of people coming across the border, working in the merrimack valley, they've bled out a lot of jobs over the past four or five years.
Lucent has laid off more than 4,000 people from its Merrimack Valley Plant over the past few years.
Raytheon shed 500 jobs from its plant in North Andover as recently as 2002.
But New Hampshire planning officials say they have no plans to attract manufacturing plants to the Salem area.
Marie Cappello says for one thing, there isn't much available land.
And she says a big employer in the area might not prove attractive enough for commuters to stay closer to home.
to try to say lets keep nh people working in new hampshire is a good thought, but isn't the way things usually work out. people go where they get the best jobs, where their skill sets fits in and that's sort of all over the place.
Planners say the best thing they can do for Salem commuters is improve transportation.
The state's project to widen I-93 is the centerpiece of their plan.
They say that will make the commute to Massachusetts much easier.
