Business in New Hampshire: Inflation and Recession Concerns

Business in New Hampshire: Inflation and Recession Concerns

Discuss a possible recession as we kick off the new year with record inflation.



Business. I’m FRED KOLKER, and here’s a quote from my Economist guest. It’s hard to see a recession without consumers cutting back sharply and businesses laying off workers. This is from the guy sitting next to me, Brian GOTTLIEB, Director of the Bureau of Economic and Labor Information for the New Hampshire Department of Employment Security. welcome. Nice to be in the studio, Fred. Nice to be in the studio, right? Exactly. You have kept me at a distance many times over the past few years. We are here to enter the new year. By the way, I wish you all a happy new year and a very happy new year. A recent presentation you gave in public. You said that family and financial obligations, including debt, are increasing. You saw this in New Hampshire. We saw this in New Hampshire. But I think the important point is, Fred, when we go into a potential recession, when we look specifically at the economy, it’s still relatively low compared to what it was before. It was lower than in previous recessions. Brought to you with some diagrams. Current perceptions of inflation, recession, labor force participation, job growth, and this particular age group that is relevant to me. and economic growth. Let’s go to the first one. The first is inflation. It shows two lines. Red is retail sales, excluding cars. The blue line is the witchcraft tail sale. Both fell. brian. Yes, they fell. But I think the important thing, Fred, is that they persist. I mean, consumers are worried that inflation has been going up, prices are going up, but consumers haven’t diminished to the point where I’m particularly concerned that we’re under the looming threat of a recession. Yes. Now the question of the year, which is the recession, right? This graph shows recessionary New Hampshire and the red line, and America’s fear of the blue line. Yeah, one of the things I’ve been doing during the pandemic is trying to find data released on a high frequency basis. The data is released weekly. Basically, it looks at the strength of searches for the term “recession” in New Hampshire and the US80. What you’re seeing is, if you just look at the pre-pandemic period, people searching for the word “recession” as evidenced by the rise in recession fears. It spiked again after the Russian invasion and when gasoline prices spiked and other prices spiked. But it’s gone down, and it’s going to be down in New Hampshire and gas prices tomorrow. correct. The next picture caught my attention. Labor force or labor force participation. The blue bars on the left show the decline in engagement by age group, from oldest at the top to youngest at the bottom, note the relevant age groups at the bottom. The 20 to 24 year olds and all those bars on the left are seeing a decline in participation. The three bars on the right represent increases in engagement, most of which are decreases. Yes, it’s down everywhere, it’s down across the country, initially it’s down the most among young people, it’s down pretty dramatically. and the elderly population’s concerns about the health problems of the epidemic. But lately, the group that has most stubbornly returned to the workforce has been young people. I think some of those claims are overblown because I think people, especially young people, are already in gig work, and traditionally they may not see themselves as employed or as a workforce, but rather that they make money in some way. But despite that, New Hampshire’s workforce remains below pre-pandemic levels. That’s our biggest concern, our biggest threat to further growth in eventual job growth and your forecast for 2023 is on the far right side of the next graph. The red bar is New Hampshire, and the blue bar is the United States. Compare it to New Hampshire now. That’s this year. Now on the left, on the left, on the left, job growth on the far left in 2020 will be significantly reduced. So you can compare that to New Hampshire in the red zone and blue zone of the US. What a change. Well, 2023 is not going to be a good year. We know the economy is slowing. I don’t think there’s a recession right now, although that’s not the consensus. Job growth will slow. I think it will go up a little bit more in New Hampshire than in the U.S. because our workforce is more constrained. Finally, Brian, the national initial jobless claims are still reported at 260,000 this past week and New Hampshire has filed for unemployment benefits. 30% to 40% below pre-pandemic levels. I’m not terribly concerned that numbers could fluctuate wildly around the holidays, but we’re still in a comfort zone. Brian Gottlieb, director of the Bureau of Economic and Labor Information, New Hampshire Department of Employment Security. Thank you. Thank you, Fred.If you’d like to see some of it again, especially those charts, head over to

Business in New Hampshire: Inflation and Recession Concerns

Discuss a possible recession as we kick off the new year with record inflation.

Fred Kocher sits down with the New Hampshire Bureau of Economic and Labor Information Director to discuss the economy, inflation and fears of a possible recession.

Fred Kocher sits down with the New Hampshire Bureau of Economic and Labor Information Director to discuss the economy, inflation and fears of a possible recession.

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