Immigrants can reinvigorate NH’s economy

To the editor:

New Hampshire’s economy is at a tipping point. There exists a shortage of skilled workers that serve tech, health care, manufacturing and other sectors.

Reasons for these shortages include an aging workforce and the exodus from the state by young workers (several studies have demonstrated that many college-aged residents leave the state to pursue their post-secondary education and typically do not return to join the workforce). An older population can lead to increased health care costs, workforce shortages and lack of workforce diversity.

A recent study by the NH Center for Public Policy Studies shows that a path forward is to attract more new Americans and immigrants to New Hampshire. Immigrants can bring new ideas, business and vitality to our economy. But to facilitate assimilation, we need to increase our ability to teach English as a second language in our schools. 

Hellenic American University is proud to launch a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) professional development program that combines online courses and a supervised teaching practicum in a classroom setting. All this, together with close faculty mentoring and academic support, make this program a smart choice to improve our educational offering, and get students on a path to success. Together, we can help retool our economy for a better future with new thinking, a more diverse population and hard work.

John F. Slater

Associate professor

Director of operations,
Manchester campus

Hellenic American University

Manchester