Several times a year New Hampshire Employment Security releases short-term forecasts on jobs. For the period of late 2014 through late 2016, the state expects 14,197 new jobs, which would be a gain of two percent for the period. The forecast says job growth is expected in every sector of the economy and in nearly every job category.
But Brian Gottlob of PolEcon Research in Dover says, with the unemployment rate lower than it's been in years, changes in New Hampshire's labor force could restrain job growth. “Fewer younger people are aging into the labor force and a larger number are exiting out of the labor force because they're getting older," Gottlob says. "We're not replacing as many people in the labor force as are leaving.”
Other factors Gottlob says may affect the state's potential job growth: mismatches between the workers skills have and those employers need, and fewer skilled workers coming from out of state.
He says, in the short term at least, that means some employers are likely to offer jobs that go unfilled.
