WESTBORO, Mass – New England added jobs for the first time in three years during the first quarter, but economic and employment growth is expected to be slow for several more years, a nonprofit economic forecasting organization said.

Through 2008, New Hampshire and Connecticut are expected to see overall economic growth rates above the U.S. average, while Maine and Vermont are expected to have weaker recoveries.

The region won’t recover the jobs lost over the past three years until the third quarter of 2006, according to the New England Economic Partnership, which held its spring conference on Wednesday.

“New England’s decline was deeper and longer than the nation’s,” said NEEP’s forecast manager, Ross Gittell, a professor at the University of New Hampshire.

“However, with sustained vitality in the national economy and the long-delayed but now-current rebound in the Massachusetts economy, we are expecting the region to catch up in the second half of 2004,” he said.

Among the New England states, Massachusetts had the steepest employment decline and is expected to have the longest recovery, the group said.

Speakers at the conference said the strongest growth would come in the technology, business, health care and education sectors. Manufacturing is expected to remain weak.