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New Hampshire’s Covid unemployment rate tops 17% As New Hampshire’s economy begins to reopen, initial unemployment claims keep pouring in, though at a lesser rate, bringing the state’s coronavirus-related unemployment rate to 17.1%, according to New Hampshire Employment Security’s analysis of claims filed between March 15 and May 2. NASHUA REGION LAKES REGION NORTH COUNTRY Waterville Valley, the resort area and the home of Gov. Chris Sununu’s family business, had the highest rate in the state, a whopping 46.8%. When it comes to counties, tourism-dependent Carroll County had Last week, the week ending May 9, there the highest rate, 26.6%. Rockingham County’s were another 9,491 initial claims filed, bringTOP ROW: BUSINESS FINANCE,since ENERGY rateTECH, wasARCHITECTURE, 15%, but thatENGINEERING, rate is likely HOSPITALS, to be as BANKING, ing the PERSONAL total to 182,925 the pandemic SECOND ROW: FEATURE ANDpoints JUMPS,higher, IN BRIEF, FLOTSAM, LAW, OPINIONS, THE LATEST, ABOUT TOWN manySTORY as four since it doesn’t first hit the state. THIRD ROW: REAL include ESTATE + New CONSTRUCTION, NEWS, CHARITABLE GIVING, MOREofONLINE HampshireEDUCATION, residents HEALTHCARE, laid off in TOURISM, The good news is that the number initial FORTH ROW: AREA Massachusetts GRAPHICS, anotherorTOURISM CALENDAR, LAST claims WORD continues to go down. The initial numMaine, choice, according to the analysis. ber last week was 24% lower than the 12,475 Restaurants, which will be allowed to open filed during the week ending May 2, but that’s up to outdoors dining next week, has been still almost 20 times the number of weekly the hardest-hit economic sector, with 22,000 claims filed before the pandemic-induced refilings. Retail was next, with nearly 20,000 cession. (new car dealers accounting for 2,600 of Nationally, weekly new claims fell by 8%. In those), and healthcare was third at nearly seven states, led by Connecticut, claims went 15,400. up. Nearly 3 million Americans filed initial All told, some 173,000 workers filed for ben- claims last week, bringing the total to 36.5 efits during the time period, but 116,600 were million. That will add to the national unemactually collecting unemployment during the ployment rate, which was 14.7% in April. The week ending May 2. Some were denied ben- U.S. Department of Labor is scheduled to reefits, and others may have gone back to work. lease state-specific April rates soon.
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Controlled Fluidics reverse-engineers its way into the PPE market When it comes to shifting gears, Controlled Fluidics, a Milford-based plastics manufacturer, certainly knows how to do it. The company, which specializes in manufacturing precision manifolds and plastic components, was recently recruited by the Elliot Hospital in Manchester to help it meet a pressing need for face shields for its healthcare workers. “I received a call from a surgeon from Elliot Hospital in Manchester,” said Tom Rohlfs, president and principal engineer of Controlled Fluidics. “He desperately needed face shields and wanted to know if we could manufacture them.” The shields are part of positive pressure face masks which are used by healthcare workers primarily when intubating a patient when placing them on a respirator. The intubation procedure presents one of the greatest risks of infection for any procedure that healthcare workers routinely perform, Rohlfs was told. The face mask assembly has a removable shield that can be discarded after every patient, preventing contamination and protecting healthcare workers’ well-being. The emergency room physician told Rohlfs he was down to his last two face shields and had been unable to obtain replacements be-
cause of a nationwide shortage of personal protective equipment. “I drove to his house and picked up one of his two face shields,” Rohlfs says. “My team and I examined it and reverse-engineered it. Within 24 hours, we had a prototype face mask for him. He approved the prototype and ordered 300 of them for the hospital.” But, after fulfilling the order, Rohlfs discovered that he had a lot of extra material left over, so he advertised more shields for sale to medical workers. The response was tremendous, he said. Controlled Fluidics was soon receiving calls from all over the U.S. Orders ranged from one shield for an individual nurse or doctor to 10 shields for a clinic to 2,000 for the HMO giant Kaiser Permanente. In the meantime, the company is also busy making parts for respirator machines. Rohlfs said Controlled Fluidics has been making parts for medical equipment for a long time, but the company has never experienced such demand. “One client just placed an order that is five times larger than the biggest order we’ve ever gotten, and they keep calling because they need the parts right away. We’re making them as fast as we can.” — JEFF FEINGOLD
