Even before stampeders rushed north from Seattle to seek their fortunes in the Klondike gold fields, sparsely populated Alaska was important to the economy of Washington state.
That remains true today, with Alaska activities supporting about 113,000 jobs and over $6.1 billion in earnings in the Puget Sound region, according to a new report by the McDowell Group that was commissioned by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. The economic benefits to the region have grown substantially since 2003, when 103,500 jobs and $4.3 billion in earnings were attributed to Alaska economic activities, according to the report.
The report, titled "Ties that Bind," details Alaska's economic impact on six Puget Sound-area counties with longstanding links to Alaska.
"The economic relationship between the two regions has strengthened over time, reflecting improved transportation ties and growing resident populations and economies," says the report.
That relationship goes both ways, even though the population of the Puget Sound area is nearly six times Alaska's statewide population.
The Puget Sound region sends consumer goods, tourists and maritime services to Alaska. Alaska sends fish and crude oil, along with hospital patients and college students.
The biggest Alaska-based employer in the Puget Sound region, aside from the general services sector, is the seafood industry, the report said. Much of the Alaska seafood industry is based in Seattle, and Alaska seafood accounted for 23,900 jobs and $1.34 billion in earnings in the Puget Sound area in 2013, it said.
Those ranged from jobs pulling fish out of the water to those overseeing fish harvests.
About 4,340 residents were directly engaged in Alaska commercial fishing, and those fishermen earned $571 million, the report said.
Thirty-six seafood-processing companies accounting for 82 percent of the Alaska catch value have headquarters in the region, and several fishery management and marketing organizations and industry-support companies are located in or near Seattle.
The Puget Sound transportation sector is also Alaska-focused. In 2013, 3.4 million tons of cargo moved between Puget Sound and Alaska, and of that, 80 percent moved north, according to the report. Alaska is the destination for more than 80 percent of domestic containerized cargo traffic out of Puget Sound. Alaska's impact on the region's marine-cargo industry was 5,500 jobs and $450 million in wages in 2013, according to the McDowell Group's analysis.
Passenger travel to and from Alaska accounted for 14,200 jobs and $554 million in earnings in the Puget Sound area in 2013, according to the report.
Nearly half of the cruise passengers headed for Alaska depart from Seattle, and the business has grown substantially since 1999, when only six vessels sailed up to Alaska. Cruise traffic from Seattle peaked in 2010, when 223 vessels operated out of Seattle, the report said. Since then, business has declined a bit; there were 178 Alaska-bound cruise ships sailing out of Seattle in 2014.
More than 1 million passengers travel by air between Puget Sound and Alaska, and about 6 percent of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport's business in 2013 was attributed to Alaska, the report said.
Alaska, meanwhile, supplies 46 percent of the crude oil refined in the Puget Sound region. Refining Alaska crude accounts for 12,000 jobs and $780 million in labor earnings in 2013, the report said.