Employment Security outlines staffing, trust fund health and paid family leave details

George Cabanas, commissioner of the Department of Employment Security, briefed the committee on the agency’s funding, staffing and program work, saying the department receives no general fund support for core operations and relies primarily on federal grants and employer assessments to run unemployment insurance, employment services and labor market information.

Cabanas said the department’s full‑time staff total is 282 (the hearing included a discussion that some permanent vacancies exceed that number when temporary positions are excluded) and that the agency reached a staffing high of about 355 during the pandemic. He told the panel the department has adjusted its staffing and operations since the pandemic and is now below pre‑pandemic claim levels.

Unemployment trust fund and employer tax details

The commissioner said the unemployment trust fund balance is about $388,500,000 and that the state received $109,000,000 in CARES Act pandemic funding to shore up reserves during the COVID‑19 emergency. He described New Hampshire’s private‑sector average unemployment tax rate as about 0.61% on the first $14,000 in wages (roughly $85 per employee), a figure he said is ‘‘less than a third’’ of what employers pay in neighboring Massachusetts.

Cabanas and his team described how federal administrative grants fund much of core work, and how a 0.2% employer set‑aside of state unemployment taxes supports the Job Training Fund (about $6,000,000 annually) and helps sustain New Hampshire Works offices around the state.

Job training and reemployment activities

The department reported 65 job fairs in the prior year (both in‑person and virtual) and described three workforce programs: Work Invest (employer training grants), Work Now New Hampshire (job readiness and placement assistance) and Work Ready New Hampshire (community college job readiness). Since 2019 the department said it administered roughly $6.8 million in Work Invest grants, $6.2 million for Work Now programming and $3.6 million for Work Ready New Hampshire delivered by the community college system.

Paid Family and Medical Leave program

Cabanas described the state’s paid family and medical leave (PFML) program, noting that MetLife is the current vendor through a competitive procurement that runs through 2029 and that the program covers roughly 24,000 workers, including state employees. He said approximately 1,800 workers had enrolled through individual purchase channels and that open enrollment for individuals runs December 1 through January 29 each year. The department reported roughly 80% of individual claimants used the program to bond with newborn children and that about 75% of individual enrollees were women.

Technology modernization and cloud migration

The department said roughly 12% of its budget supports DOIT and 23.2 DOIT full‑time positions embedded in NHDES systems; it also told the committee it plans to migrate the unemployment insurance system to the cloud using federal modernization funds awarded competitively through the U.S. Department of Labor. The commissioner said cloud migration is planned during the calendar year and will be paid largely by one‑time federal modernization dollars; the department expects that migration to reduce on‑premises data center footprint and associated staffing needs over time.

Enrollment, processing and appeals

Cabanas told the committee the department paid more than $2 billion in federal and state unemployment benefits to roughly 175,000 workers during the pandemic and said current claim volumes are below pre‑pandemic levels. He said administrative overtime and 24/7 staffing pressures have eased but that some temporary positions and volunteers were critical during the emergency response.

Ending

Cabanas offered to return with additional details and said the agency will continue to monitor staffing, federal funding and modernization timelines. Committee members asked for follow‑up details on vacancies, expenditures and interest credited to the trust fund; the department said it will provide further documentation on requests.