House Leaders on January Unemployment Report

House Speaker William O’Brien (R-Mont Vernon) and House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt (R-Salem) today commented on the release of the January employment data from the Department of Employment Security (NHES).  The report (see below) showed that while the unemployment rate stayed the same at 5.2% due to adjustments made by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics to account for population data updates from the 2010 census, the state continues to add jobs.  The number of employed New Hampshire residents increase by 1,180 and the number of unemployed residents dropped by 280, while the workforce expanded by 900, according to NHES.

House Speaker William O’Brien

“This is one more in a string of employment reports that shows New Hampshire’s economy is continuing to strengthen.  It’s great news to see that more of our friends and neighbors are finding work, and that our workforce is continuing to grow.  As legislators, our responsibility is to continue to develop a strong environment for private sector employers to grow and bring good, new jobs here.  That means redoubling our efforts to keep taxes low, reduce burdensome regulations and sell our state as the place to do business.  We are obviously headed in the right direction, but we have more work to do.”

House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt

“While the Democrats and the media continue to fixate on a handful of bills unrelated to jobs, they are missing the recovery going on across the state in which our employers are gaining the confidence to grow and our residents are finding work. The real New Hampshire recovery, which has nothing to do with stimulus spending, passing overreaching takeovers of our healthcare industry and pushing new regulations.  Instead, this comeback is because of the hard work and courage of Republican legislators who had the guts to stand up to special interests and say ‘enough.’ This led to an honest balanced budget, tax reductions that mean that we no longer have the highest business tax rate in the nation, and 43 – and counting – new laws to cut regulation and red tape.  Thankfully, our citizens get the fact that change was necessary and they support our efforts to bring fiscal responsibility to New Hampshire, allowing our employers to create new jobs.”

Full Unemployment News Release:

New Hampshire’s preliminary seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for January 2012 was 5.2 percent, unchanged from the revised December 2011 rate.  The January 2011 seasonally adjusted rate was 5.6 percent.

Seasonally adjusted estimates for January 2012 placed the number of employed residents at 704,080, an increase of 1,180 from the previous month and an increase of 7,830 from January 2011.  The number of unemployed residents decreased by 280 over-the-month to 38,230.  This was 2,970 fewer unemployed than in January 2011.  From December 2011 to January 2012, the total labor force increased by 900 to 742,310.  This was an increase of 4,860 from January 2011.

The unadjusted January 2012 unemployment rate for New Hampshire was 5.7 percent, an increase of 0.8 percentage points from the December 2011 rate, which was unchanged with revision.  The January 2011 unadjusted rate was 6.2 percent. Nationally, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for January 2012 was 8.3 percent, a decrease of 0.2 percentage points from the December 2011 rate and a decrease of 0.8 percentage points from the January 2011 rate. 

The national unadjusted rate for January 2012 was 8.8 percent, an increase of 0.5 percentage points from the December 2011 rate and a decrease of 1.0 percentage point from the January 2011 rate.

NOTE: State nonfarm employment estimates are available on at: www.nhes.nh.gov/elmi. Local area unemployment rates are expected to be available on Thursday, March 15. All monthly data will continue to be published in the monthly newsletter New Hampshire Economic Conditions.