The cash flow from the rest of the state's economic drivers -- including tourism, seafood and air cargo -- support only about a third of the state's jobs, according to the analysis.
Support is the key word.
The 139-page analysis, by UAA economist Scott Goldsmith, doesn't merely count the number of jobs that exist in each industry. It calculates how many of the state's 357,000 jobs rely on the cash flow created by a specific sector -- seafood processing and military jobs, for example. This analysis is useful because it shows the extent to which the well-being on one person's job depends on the health of other industries and federal dollars, Goldsmith said.
Take the Alaska Native Medical Center, for example. It provides medical care to Alaska Natives and employs roughly 1,900 people. The hospital is a local employer, but "mostly federal dollars support it," Goldsmith said.
An example of how a job in one industry relies on the activity of another can be shown this way: A state worker, who is paid out of taxes on oil production, purchases a newly built house, eats at his neighborhood restaurant, buys groceries from the supermarket and shops at the mall. Multiply this by thousands of state workers and lots of construction, restaurant, supermarket and mall jobs depend on oil production.
The state's biggest job creator is the federal government, not oil and gas production, according to Goldsmith's analysis. Due to the state's military bases, massive federal land ownership -- including the largest national parks and forests -- Alaska Native programs and other federal initiatives, federal money supports roughly 125,100 jobs in Alaska, he said.
The oil industry supports about 110,000 jobs in Alaska, including three-quarters of state government jobs and nearly 60 percent of local government jobs, according to the report. "No other state in the country depends so much on a single sector to support state and local activities," wrote Goldsmith of UAA's Institute of Social and Economic Research.
The report showed that the remainder of the state's industries, plus the pensions and other assets of retired Alaskans, support the remaining third of Alaska's jobs:
• The tourism industry supports about 40,000 jobs.
• The seafood industry supports nearly 38,000 jobs.
• The mining industry supports 11,700 jobs.
• The air cargo industry supports 7,400 jobs.
• The timber industry supports 5,900 jobs.
Goldsmith's report is the first in a series called Investing for Alaska's Future. Northrim Bank and the University of Alaska Foundation funded the research initiative.
An upcoming report in the series, to be published early next year, will investigate the role of oil dollars in Alaska since statehood in 1959.
Goldsmith said that report will show how oil revenue has benefited other industries that otherwise would shoulder a greater tax burden. The state has used its oil revenue to build mining roads and fish hatcheries, for example.
"Some of the strength we see in the fishing industry and mining is due to the benefits from oil," he said.
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