It's not our fault, but we seniors can help

Wrangell is getting older. Not just the town, but its residents.

Which means its labor pool is getting older and leaving the workforce, with fewer younger people to fill job openings.

The numbers are not good for businesses, the services they want to provide their customers or the town’s economy. The job notices posted by multiple Front Street businesses, City Hall, the hospital and most everywhere else in town are as constant as rain, and just as demoralizing.

“Closed due to staffing shortages” is frustrating for everyone, and far less appreciated than “Closed to go fishing.”

The average age of a Wrangell resident is about 10 years older than the statewide number. In 2021, about 25% of residents in the community were over age 65, according to Alaska Department of Labor statistics. That number is projected to climb past 30% by 2030.

No disrespect to senior citizens (I am 71 years old), but the town needs younger workers, dozens more of them. Just as the state needs thousands.

Anchorage’s labor shortage will cost the economy thousands of jobs this year in high-wage industries like health care, according to an economic forecast released last week by the Anchorage Economic Development Corp.

Anchorage’s working-age population has shrunk by nearly 15,000 workers, about a 7% drop, the report said.

“An older population means a smaller pool of working-age people, and a lower birth rate translates to fewer future workers,” the Anchorage Daily News quoted Alaska economist Karinne Wiebold last month.

Alaska’s birth rate over the past decade has fallen below what is considered necessary to replace the population over the long haul, David Howell, the state demographer, told the Anchorage Daily News.

Meanwhile, we keep getting older. “Alaska’s 65-plus population nearly doubled from 2010 to 2021 and grew by 6,000 from 2020 to 2021 alone,” the newspaper quoted state Labor Department economist Neal Fried. “This age group will keep growing through at least 2035.”

Even older than that, the share of Alaskans 71 years old and above has increased during the past four decades, from a little over 1% to close to 8%.

It matters when employers need to fill jobs. Alaska has lost more than 16,000 people in the prime working-age group, 15- through 64-year-olds, Natasha von Imhof, a former state senator, told a gathering of Anchorage business and community leaders last month.

No state, no community can lose that many potential employees and maintain services, keep businesses open for full schedules, take on new work and grow. It’s a downward spiral that stifles the economy and communities.

It’s not just Wrangell and Alaska that are short of workers. It’s a nationwide problem.

For December, the U.S. Labor Department reported that a lower percentage of people are working or looking for work than a year ago, despite a strong economy and lots of job openings. The lower workforce participation rate means the loss of about 2.5 million employees.

Besides for aging baby boomers who move into retirement and declining birth rates, the lack of child care services and affordable housing are often cited as two of the big reasons that keep people from going to work or moving to new towns for new jobs.

There are no easy answers. But it’s up to us seniors to work toward the answers and help pay for them. We had a good life, and we owe it to others to pass on more than just advice.