Alaska July jobs down 2,100 from a year earlier

Alaska lost 2,100 jobs in July compared with a year earlier, a 0.6% decline driven almost entirely by government cuts, the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development reported Friday.

Federal employment in Alaska was 1,300 below year-ago levels. State government employment fell by 1,000.

On the private side, transportation, warehousing and utilities added 1,200 jobs, and oil and gas added 800.

Manufacturing, which in Alaska is primarily seafood processing, had 1,000 fewer July jobs than a year ago. The department named weak salmon runs as a major factor. Construction was down 700.

Alaska's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.3% in July. The national rate was 4.1%. Both were slightly lower than the month before, when Alaska stood at 4.4%.

The July figures continue a pattern the department has described for months. May's statewide job count came in even with a year earlier, as government losses matched private gains. Alaska News previously covered the June report, in which 1,300 federal cuts and 600 state losses outpaced 1,000 private-sector gains. At a Commonwealth North forum on June 26, University of Alaska Anchorage economist Brock Wilson put the state's two-year federal workforce loss above the national figure. "Between April 2024 to April 2026, we've seen across the entire nation a 14.8% decline in the headcount of the US federal civilian workforce," Wilson said. "Alaska specifically has seen a 15.8% decline."

What becomes of those workers is unclear. Ross Johnston, at the same forum, asked where federal employees leaving rural Alaska under the deferred resignation program find other work. Wilson said the data linkage needed to track them "is a little bit trickier."

The statewide unemployment rate masks wide regional gaps. In May, the Kusilvak Census Area recorded 16.1% unemployment and the Denali Borough 2.5%, with Anchorage, the state's largest labor force, at 4.7%.