Jobs continued to be shed in Alaska through December, with statewide losses at 7,600 on an annual basis, the state labor department reported Friday.
Despite the decreasing number of jobs, unemployment stayed steady from last year, and from November, at 6.5 percent.
Economists aren't exactly sure why.
Employers may be cutting jobs in Alaska by transferring people out of state, while keeping them on company job rolls. The aging of the baby boomer workforce is likely resulting in job positions being cut through attrition rather than layoffs. Workers who have lost one of multiple jobs would still be considered employed.
And people may not be applying for unemployment insurance because of stricter requirements to search for work while collecting it, said state labor economist Caroline Schultz.
The number of people claiming unemployment insurance has not budged much, Schultz said, despite moderate to large job losses across different sectors.
The Alaska unemployment rate exceeds the national rate of 4.7 percent by close to 2 percent and Schultz sees room for a higher jobless rate in Alaska to cause the gap to widen even further.
"The national unemployment rate has flattened out but there is room for Alaska unemployment to continue to rise going into 2017," she said.