3-25-15 Gasline Bill Passes – Alaska Economic Update – Arctic Residents Take Place At Arctic Policy Table

By Mark Edwards (NGP Photo)

In our last post, we discussed the falling oil prices and the possible impact on the economy. Today we will look at jobs, unemployment, and population.

Payroll jobs increase only 0.3% in 2013 and 2014.  No growth predicted in 2015 – Alaska's payroll job count increased by 1,000 jobs or 0.3% last year, similar to 2013 results.  This slight increase is much lower compared to 5,300 jobs added in 2012 and 4,900 in 2011.  The total number of payroll jobs, not including uniformed military and the self-employed, is about 336,700 on average throughout the year.  It is important to note this is a preliminary estimate by the Alaska Department of Labor using nine months of actual data from employer tax returns and three months of estimates.  The final numbers will be revised in March of 2015.  (Economic Update continued below…)  

Gasline Bill Passed House Yesterday (KTUU Video – Left; News Miner; AJC background)

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From Jason Brune (NGP Photo), Chairman, Consumer Energy Alliance-Alaska.   "Great decision Point Hope! The original suit included the anti-development Sierra Club, Alaska Wilderness League, and National Audubon Society. What happens to them now that they don't have the local face they took advantage of to give the appearance of credibility to their arguments.  "If you haven't seen it yet, watch ASRC president Rex Rock's (NGP Photo) speech to RDC which outlines how Alaska Native communities are preyed upon by these outside environmental groups and what they're doing about it."  (See Rock's RDC Speech Here) Comment: Rock's welcome initiative matches in the private sector the creative and courageous local government initiative taken by Alaska North Slope Mayor Charlotte Brower (NGP Photo) on behalf of her Arctic constituents.   -dh

(Economic Update continued…)  The Alaska Department of Labor’s forecast for 2015 is no change in employment levels.  They predict continued large losses in the government sector.  This has been occurring in federal government as budgets have tightened and are now predicted to decline in state and local government due to low oil prices. 

These public sector job losses will be balanced out by equal growth in the private sector. Continued gains of 200 new jobs are expected in the health care industry due to the continued demographic situation where Alaska has both an aging baby boomer population and a young, under 20 generation.  People require the most health care at the beginning and end of their lives. 

Oil and gas is expected to grow by 200 jobs despite low oil prices because of several large projects underway like Exxon’s work in Point Thomson and off-shore investment by Shell.  Newer entrants like Repsol, Hilcorp and Calleus Energy are also making significant investments in the state.

Retail growth is reemerging after the national recession as many franchise businesses that were preparing to enter Alaska in the last five years are finally following through with their expansion plans now that the US economy has rebounded.  Lower oil prices are also helping consumers by providing more disposal income.  This area is predicted to grow by 300 jobs.  Other forecasted contributors to positive labor growth include seafood (+200) and leisure and hospitality (+300).  We are likely to have a record number of tourists visit the state this year.  Declines of 100 jobs are expected in construction due to low oil prices and lower government spending.  This also impacts professional and business services which is forecasted for a 200 job decline in 2015.

US unemployment rate improves, now better than Alaska – Alaska's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate finished the year at 6.3%, compared to 6.4% at the end of 2013.  The comparable national rate in December was 5.6% an improvement of over 1% from 6.7% at this time last year. 

As seen in the graph below by the Alaska Department of Labor, for over five years Alaska had been doing better than the U.S. in terms of unemployment.  The rate in Alaska in blue has been relatively stable, despite the national recession and the U.S. rate spiked much higher.  Now the U.S. rate is improving relatively faster than Alaska.  This appears to already be affecting population migration trends as jobs are more easily found in the lower 48.

The unemployment rate is better in Alaska’s largest communities.  The preliminary, not seasonally adjusted, rate for Anchorage was 4.7%, Juneau 4.8%, and Fairbanks at 5.6%.  The Mat-Su rate improved from 8% in 2012 to 7.1% in December of 2014, but is still higher than the national unemployment levels. 

Anchorage and Juneau’s rate is in the range of what economists call “full employment.”  At these low levels a majority of those unemployed are due to seasonal, frictional, structural or cyclical reasons.  For example, some seasonal workers only plan to work part of the year and collect unemployment benefits for the remainder of the year.  The frictional part is the natural short-term movement of workers between jobs and first-time job seekers.  The most important issue for employers is these low rates inevitably lead to a scarcity of qualified workers and upward pressure on wages.

Ketchikan and Sitka are the two newest markets for Northrim.  They show moderate rates of unemployment at 6.6% and 5.4% respectively.

High levels of unemployment still persist in several rural areas of Alaska.  The worst situations are the Hoonah-Angoon Census Area at 21.6%, Wade Hampton Census Area 21%, Municipality of Skagway at 21.2%. However, the North Slope Borough has the lowest unemployment levels in the state at 3.7%. 

Population remains virtually unchanged in 2014, first net loss since 1987 – The most recent Department of Labor estimate for Alaska's population is 735,601.  That is a loss of 61 people net for the year.  It is significant because it is the first year since 1987 that the state did not grow.  Since that time there have been 13 years where the net in and out migration of people was negative and 13 years where it was positive.  However, in all the negative migration years, the rate of natural increase (births minus deaths) was larger than any migration losses.

Over the last decade we have been averaging about 11,000 births and 3,500 deaths for a net natural increase of about 7,500 per year.  Natural increase was 7,427 in 2014.  Last year there was a much larger than normal net out migration of 7,488 people.  This is the highest level seen since there was a net loss of 19,245 people between 1986-87 and 15,710 people from 1987-88.  The driving factor is likely to be the relative improvement of the U.S. and world economy compared to Alaska.  Also, the aging baby boom population may be slowly retiring out of Alaska.  

The 61 person net loss in 2014 is compared to a 4,471 population gain in 2013.  To put these last two years in perspective, the average population growth for the prior decade was 8,946 per year from 2002 to 2012.

Join us for our next discussion about personal income and longer term interest rates.