Portsmouth Naval Shipyard economic impact $1.4B: Towns with most workers, payroll listed
KITTERY, Maine — Portsmouth Naval Shipyard’s economic impact swelled to over $1.4 billion last year, a record high for the military installation despite a slight civilian payroll decrease.
The Seacoast Shipyard Association, an advocacy group that helped save the shipyard from closure by the federal government in 2005, unveiled its annual economic impact report Thursday. The impact in 2022 was $1,457,952,317, a 10.2% year-over-year increase, according to the report.
The Seacoast Shipyard Association calculates economic impact as the combined total of civilian employee payroll, military payroll, the cost of purchased goods and services and contracted services.
In 2021, the shipyard’s economic impact was a little more than $1.32 billion. In 2020, it was nearly $948 million at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
Alanna Schaeffer, who serves as president of the shipyard’s Metal Trades Council, is chairperson of the SSA, replacing longtime chairperson John Joyal, who is now the vice chairperson.
The shipyard is hitting a “significant deficit in hiring just like all of our local area right now,” Schaeffer said, adding more and more positions will be available in the coming years. More jobs will be added as work continues on the yard to add two more dry docks, where submarines are repaired and modernized, in the coming years.
“We have no lack of work now, and there won’t be for the foreseeable future,” Schaeffer said.
In February, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard spokesperson Jeremy Lambert said the shipyard was looking to hire 1,200 new civilian workers by the summer of 2024. The new hiring goal came after the yard hired 400 workers between July 2022 and January 2023.
Mona Potter, treasurer and secretary of the Seacoast Shipyard Association, which is not directly affiliated with the shipyard, stated the 2022 economic impact is the largest dating back to the report’s origins in 1978.
How many civilian workers are at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard?
The report each year examines the Seavey Island installation’s payroll figures, budget items, civilian employee population and the municipalities across Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, the states where most shipyard workers reside.
The shipyard’s civilian worker population reached 7,356 last year, though the Seacoast Shipyard Association found the number of employees paid was 7,718.
“The number of employees paid is greater since in many cases more than one person occupied the same position,” the report states.
What was the shipyard's 2022 civilian payroll?
In 2022, the civilian payroll at the 223-year-old base — one of America’s four public shipyards — was just over $663.5 million, a drop from $670.7 million the year before. More than 4,100 workers lived in Maine, with nearly 2,900 from New Hampshire and 160-plus from Massachusetts. A total of 187 workers came from outside those three New England states.
Close to $372 million was paid to civilian workers in Maine, compared to $239.1 million to New Hampshire employees and just shy of $24 million to Massachusetts yard workers. Almost $28.5 million was paid to workers outside the three states.
The small decrease in civilian payroll, however, was countered by a slight rise in military payroll to over $50 million, in addition to skyrocketing figures in purchased goods and services, and contracted services. In 2022, the shipyard paid nearly $196.2 million for purchased goods and services, a major increase from the previous year’s $133.7 million-plus payout, and over $559.7 million for contracted services, which was over $90 million more than in 2021.
Civilian payroll will increase as more employees are hired in the years to come following the completion of the dry dock project at the shipyard. Currently boasting three dry docks, the shipyard will have five dry docks by the end of a seven-year construction period that began in the fall of 2021.
"They are our greatest asset," said Katherine Lumino, president of the Naval Civilian Managers Association at the shipyard, of the civilian employees.
Jason Sargent, president of the Shipyard Federal Managers Association Chapter 6, recalled mass layoffs at the shipyard in the 1990s. Now, Sargent said, the shipyard is hosting hiring events every week, with Schaeffer adding the shipyard is looking to hire across all civilian positions over the next few years.
Though the yard is making an aggressive hiring push, Sargent noted the number of civilian workers currently employed in Kittery "meets the mission" it set out to achieve.
"We do more than just build submarines. We develop people," Sargent said.
Where do the most civilian shipyard workers live? Here's a list.
Seacoast New Hampshire and southern Maine, like communities across the nation, continue to grapple with a housing crunch. This results in civilian shipyard employees living farther away from the base. For years, leaders of an ongoing Joint Land Use Study between the town of Kittery and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard have noted that workers have longer commutes to the shipyard, causing traffic backups on and around the installation and resulting in parking problems in Kittery’s downtown.
More: Portsmouth Naval Shipyard bus service could ease traffic, but do workers want it?
Last year, the most shipyard workers lived in Rochester, New Hampshire, followed by the Sanford/Springvale area in Maine, which are often the two municipalities at the top of the economic impact report.
Top 10 Maine shipyard cities and towns
Sanford/Springvale
Total shipyard employees: 513
Total civilian payroll: $40.8 million
Berwick
Total shipyard employees: 416
Total civilian payroll: $35.8 million
Kittery/Kittery Point
Total shipyard employees: 415
Total civilian payroll: $35.6 million
South Berwick
Total shipyard employees: 405
Total civilian payroll: $31.5 million
Eliot
Total shipyard employees: 309
Total civilian payroll: $28.6 million
Lebanon
Total shipyard employees: 307
Total civilian payroll: $26,909,041
Wells
Total shipyard employees: 240
Total civilian payroll: $21.6 million
North Berwick
Total shipyard employees: 225
Total civilian payroll: $20.2 million
York
Total shipyard employees: 181
Total civilian payroll: $16.6 million
Biddeford
Total shipyard employees: 177
Total civilian payroll: $14.8 million
Top 10 New Hampshire shipyard cities and towns
Rochester
Total shipyard employees: 528
Total civilian payroll: $38.8 million
Dover
Total shipyard employees: 408
Total civilian payroll: $31.4 million
Portsmouth
Total shipyard employees: 224
Total civilian payroll: $19.1 million
Somersworth
Total shipyard employees: 212
Total civilian payroll: $15.5 million
Barrington
Total shipyard employees: 157
Total civilian payroll: $13.3 million
Farmington
Total shipyard employees: 138
Total civilian payroll: $10.8 million
Newmarket
Total shipyard employees: 102
Total civilian payroll: $7.9 million
Milton
Total shipyard employees: 95
Total civilian payroll: $7.1 million
Rollinsford
Total shipyard employees: 64
Total civilian payroll: $5.4 million
Hampton
Total shipyard employees: 61
Total civilian payroll: $5 million
Top 5 Massachusetts shipyard cities and towns
Amesbury
Total shipyard employees: 31
Total civilian payroll: $3.2 million
Haverhill
Total shipyard employees: 22
Total civilian payroll: $2.2 million
Fall River
Total shipyard employees: 16
Total civilian payroll: $1.7 million
Georgetown
Total shipyard employees: 5
Total civilian payroll: $450,000
Danvers
Total shipyard employees: 5
Total civilian payroll: $430,000
"We are very, very thankful for our workforce that puts their boots on the ground and gets us out in the waterfront, working every single day to make sure that our submarines are in the water, that we’re prepared for anything and everything that might hit us from around the world," Schaeffer said. "Their service is vital to our national defense."
Shaheen: Shipyard is a 'cornerstone of New Hampshire’s Seacoast'
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, reacted to the release of the economic impact report on Thursday, emphasizing the impact the shipyard has on the local region and the American military.
“For over 200 years the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard has been a cornerstone of New Hampshire’s Seacoast,” she said in a prepared statement. “The report released today underscores the impact that the Shipyard has on our country’s military readiness and the Seacoast’s economic growth.”
Shaheen is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Her comments echoed sentiments expressed when the shipyard was saved from potential closure in 2005.
“The shipyard’s employees are the gold standard for submarine maintenance; continually finding ways to improve processes and delivering their projects on time,” she added. “The investments we have secured to modernize the shipyard are paying dividends, and I’ll continue to advocate for more support for the shipyard and its workers as the Senate finishes its work on the annual defense and government funding legislation.”
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth Naval Shipyard economic impact report: All the numbers
