The Business Roundtable, a Washington, D.C.-based association of CEOs of America’s largest employers, has released a study that shows over 180,000 — one in five — New Hampshire jobs depended on trade in 2019 before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

As businesses continue to recover from the pandemic and other supply chainrelated challenges, research found that expanding trade ties can accelerate U.S. economic growth, support high-paying New Hampshire jobs and benefit American businesses, workers, farmers and families.

Since 1992, New Hampshire’s share of jobs tied to trade has increased by 104 percent, and trade-related employment grew four times faster than total state employment from 1992 to 2019, according to the study. Of New Hampshire’s 2,556 exporters, 85 percent are small- and medium-sized companies with fewer than 500 workers.

The study says New Hampshire exported $5.8 billion in goods and $3.3 billion in services in 2019, including aerospace products and parts, pharmaceuticals and medicines, communications equipment, and personal travel and tourism services.

— AMANDA ANDREWS