Two economic forecasts released last week share the same conclusion. The state’s economy is still growing, but just barely. The New England Economic Partnership released a report last week that says New Hampshire will grow faster than New England as a whole through 2010, though uncertainty in the housing market could have a significant negative influence in the region.

Ross Gittell, University of New Hampshire James R. Carter Professor and professor of management, and regional forecast manager and vice president of the New England Economic Partnership, presented his fall 2006 New England economic forecast at the partnership’s fall conference held last week in Boston.

“The outlook is for a slow growing New England economy. Adding to a relatively bleak economic outlook is high downside risk in the forecast. This is most influenced by uncertainty in the housing market. A weaker and longer to recover housing market nationally and in the region (than in the forecast) would have a significant negative influence on the regional economy,” Gittell said.

According to Gittell, regional employment growth is expected to remain below the national average throughout the forecast period, 2005 to 2010. A new report from the state Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau, part of the Department of Employment Security, says the state’s total employment is projected to increase by 17 percent between 2004 and 2014, an increase of nearly 114,000 jobs.

The region’s real per capita income is expected to grow well below the national average over the forecast period, 2.5 percent per year compared to the national average of 3.4 percent, according to Gittell. The other states in the region are expected to have annual real per capita income growth ranging from 2.7 percent in Connecticut to 2.2 percent in Rhode Island.

Retail trade remains the largest employment sector, accounting for one in five jobs in New Hampshire. Manufacturing is the second largest employment sector. Though the number of manufacturing jobs are continuing to decline, the remaining jobs require highly skilled or technically proficient workers, so their average pay continues to increase.