Ketchikan lost jobs in 2025 as Southeast Alaska set employment and wage records, report says

Ketchikan lost 23 jobs in 2025 even as Southeast Alaska as a whole set records for employment and wages, according to the annual Southeast Alaska by the Numbers report released Sept. 29.

Ketchikan went from 7,345 jobs to 7,322, a 0.3% drop, while its wages rose 5%, to $479.1 million. The town was one of only four communities in the region to lose jobs, along with Hoonah, Yakutat and Hyder. The report, prepared by Rain Coast Data for Southeast Conference, doesn't break down Ketchikan's numbers by industry.

The region added 590 jobs, reaching a record 46,312, and wages rose 7% to a record $3.1 billion. The average Southeast wage rose 6%, to $66,796, faster than inflation.

Tourism remains the region's biggest business. The visitor industry was Southeast's largest sector for the third straight year, with 19% of year-round-equivalent jobs. Ketchikan welcomed 1.52 million cruise passengers in 2025, and the report projects 1.64 million this year and 1.67 million in 2027. Regional air arrivals in the first half of 2026 ran 9% below the same period a year earlier.

Housing is the region's greatest economic constraint, the report says. Ketchikan's average single-family home was valued at $450,801 from January through July 2026, below Juneau and Sitka. Southeast added 315 housing units in 2025, the most in a year since 2016.

Government jobs fell in every category except the Coast Guard, and federal employment outside the Coast Guard dropped 15% in the last three months of 2025.

In a Southeast Conference survey of 360 business leaders in April, 62% rated the business climate positively and 67% had a positive outlook. One summed up the 2026 outlook as "cautiously optimistic," if the region addresses workforce, housing, transportation, infrastructure and costs.