Southeast Alaska continues to lead the state in job losses. Officials say that the unemployment rate has been skewed in recent months, so jobs are the better indicator of economic health.
Unemployment is high statewide; Alaskans filed nearly five times as many claims in December than the same period in 2019.
But officials say some numbers are off—that is, the employment rate. Skagway has the highest unemployment rate in the state, at more than 14%, according to Department of Labor and Workforce Development numbers released this month. Haines’ unemployment rate is 10.5 %. Those figures would be a slight improvement over last year.
“We know that’s not the case, in any of our communities,” said Karinne Wiebold. She says there’s a problem with those percentages. They don’t square with the job loss and unemployment counts, which she says are more reliable data.
“The health of the communities is not better than it was last year. We have job losses across the state and, particularly, Southeast has been hit hard because of our … reliance on tourism,” she said.
The leisure and hospitality sector is hardest hit statewide with 27.3% fewer jobs than a year ago. Last summer, Skagway was down more than a thousand jobs over the year before. Haines was down 500.
It isn’t just summer losses. In December there were 2,800 fewer jobs than the previous year.
“Jobs and wages just matter,” Wiebold said.
“Fundamentally, you know, if you lose a job, that ripples through the community. It has effects on the household. It has effects on the government; it has effects on the schools.”
She says there’s another misleading piece of data. The state reports that “Mining and Logging” is down 22%. She says that’s because oil and gas losses fall under that umbrella. The mining industry is actually stable.
Wiebold says she’s interested in looking at job numbers once we move into April and May, and stop comparing the present to pre-pandemic months. She says it will take time, but she’s hoping to see some growth.
