Dartblog

President Kim will deliver the Report of the President to the General Faculty today at 3pm, and it appears certain that serious cost cuts will be announced. Just what form these will take is anyone’s guess, but if layoffs are involved, it behooves everyone to look at the state of the local economy before any hand-wringing and mass wailing begins. As reported in the Nashua Telegraph:

College towns in New Hampshire fared best in terms of unemployment, with rates near or below five percent. Dartmouth hometown Hanover had a jobless rate of 4.4 percent, while neighboring Lebanon, home to academic hospital Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, had a rate of 4.1 percent. Durham, home to the University of New Hampshire, had a jobless rate of 4.5 percent.

Local rates are the definition accepted by most economists of full employment, and speaking from direct experience in one of my own businesses, it is still hard to hire people in Hanover/Lebanon, even in the teeth of an economic downturn that the NYT persists in trying to label the Great Recession.

So if layoffs are in order for the good of the College, we can feel confident that the people laid off will find some comparable employment in short order (though perhaps not at an employer with the same opulent benefits package).