The number of nonresidents working in Alaska hit a new record in 2023 and all major industries are relying more heavily on workers who do not live in the state, according to the state Department of Labor.
Nonresident workers in Alaska totaled 92,664 in 2023 and comprised 23.5% of the workforce, the highest percentage since 1995, according to an annual report published by the department that is mandated by state law.
Typically, about one in five workers in Alaska is not a resident of the state, and certain seasonal industries, such as seafood processing, have long relied out-of-state labor.
But nearly all Alaska industries need nonresident workers, and nearly all increased that reliance in 2023, said Rob Kreiger, a state economist who summarized the data in an article in the February issue of Alaska Economic Trends, the Department of Labor’s monthly research magazine. Kreiger also co-authored the department’s annual report.
The increased reliance on nonresident workers coincides with a 12-year streak of net outmigration — meaning more people leaving the state than moving in — and a loss of working-age adults.
Kreiger said 2023 is the most recent year for which the department has full data. The 2024 data will not be available until next January, he said.
The trends shown now may well be continuing, he said. “I would not want to speculate, but I do think the workers shortage persisted in 2024, which could result in numbers similar to what we saw in 2023,” he said by email.
The department uses Alaska Permanent Fund dividend applications to analyze worker residency, which means someone who has lived and worked in Alaska less than a full calendar year would be counted as a nonresident.
In 2023, the biggest percentage increase in nonresident employment in 2023 was in the construction sector, Kreiger reported in his analysis. Construction job growth has largely been driven by projects funded through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and by increased oil activity.
Construction is project-based, making it a good fit for nonresident workers, Kreiger said.
In the oil and gas industry, 37.4% of the workers were nonresidents in 2023, up from 36% the year prior, according to the state’s annual report. Among oil and gas workers whose jobs are on the North Slope, 45% were nonresidents that year, according to the report.
Seafood processing, which has traditionally relied on nonresidents to fill most of its jobs, was even more reliant on those workers in 2023, according to the department’s annual report. That year, 82.8% of the workers were nonresident, and the percentage has crept up steadily since 2014 and 2015, when about 74% of seafood processing workers were not Alaska residents, the annual report said.
The state lacks enough residents to fill summer seafood processing jobs, resulting in high numbers of temporary residents coming to Alaska to fill the positions.
Tourism is another seasonal industry with a longtime reliance on nonresident workers that increased in 2023. That year, 34% of workers in the visitor-related industry were nonresidents, up slightly from 32.6% in 2022.
Nonresidents made up 14.1% of Alaska’s health care workers in 2023, up from 13.5% the previous year, according to the annual report. Among registered nurses working in Alaska in 2023, 20.5% were nonresidents, according to the report.
The Alaska Beacon is an independent, donor-funded news organization. Alaskabeacon.com.
Reader Comments(0)