Business/Economy

Alaska posts slight job gains in first half of 2015

Job growth, however slight, continued in Alaska for the first six months of 2015, a result that was not particularly different from the same figures over the last decade, according to data released Tuesday by the state Department of Labor.

The less than 1 percent increase in total jobs, or 2,262 full- and part-time positions, was boosted by new openings of retail stores and hires by bars, restaurants and private health-care providers. On the downside, seafood processing lost a substantial number of jobs due to fewer hires in winter groundfish fisheries and a late return of sockeye salmon to Bristol Bay, the department said in a prepared statement.

Public sector employment fell by 72 jobs, but government losses slowed in the first half of 2015 compared to previous years, largely because the five-year trend of significant federal job losses subsided, the state Labor Department said. At the same time, state budget woes are liable to put their own brakes on the economy.

A large increase in the construction industry was due, for the most part, to a change in how state labor economists classify certain jobs. In this case, jobs that once counted as part of oil and gas sector employment were shifted to the building sector. Even with the change, which had the effect of reducing job numbers in the petroleum sector, oil and gas jobs rose by 116.

Average monthly employment from January through June was 335,266. Employers paid $9 billion in wages during that same period, a 2.1 percent increase from the same period in the previous year, when adjusted for inflation.

The data do not show whether the share of part-time to full-time jobs has changed over time, said state labor economist Caroline Schultz.

"State data on hours worked is very limited," she wrote in an e-mail. "Some states collect hours from employers ... but we don't unfortunately."

Job numbers for the second half of 2015 are not on track to be as strong, with two straight months of declines posted in August and September compared to the same periods the previous year.

Jeannette Lee Falsey

Jeannette Lee Falsey is a former reporter for Alaska Dispatch News. She left the ADN in 2017.

ADVERTISEMENT