Forecasters project highways are busier than ever this Independence Day weekend, fueled in part by gas prices that have remained at prices last seen about one decade ago.
Last June, there were 20 percent more homes on the market in Maine. Same goes for the June before that.
Fireworks imports from China to Maine have risen sharply this year, up nearly 60 percent in value in advance of the Fourth of July holiday.
Renters around Portland have been paying about 10 percent more than the national average as Bangor and Lewiston renters saw prices drop through 2015. But that doesn’t make up for generally lower income around Bangor and Lewiston.
The company proposing an ambitious plan to turn Maine’s forests into energy haven’t volunteered much about their past experience with such projects, but a regulatory filing made public this week helps shed light on their history.
Data on foreign worker programs shows the specific businesses that want to fill positions with foreign workers, when those jobs would start and end and how much they would pay, among other things.
Real estate activity in Maine dipped slightly in the first quarter of 2017, but it remains generally higher than any point since the deep recession that hit almost a decade ago.
There’s a lot still unknown about the rollout of the commercial marijuana business but there’s interest across the state in capturing part of those new markets.
The unemployment rate hit a historic low in April, at 3 percent flat. That’s lower than it’s ever been in Maine. But the unemployment rate reported each month is just one of six ways that labor economists assess the country’s labor force.
Maine imports of Canadian softwood lumber increased about 60 percent last year, in product categories now subject to tariffs of about 20 percent. But the story behind those increasing imports and reaction to the tariffs get complicated fast.
