April unemployment numbers were released by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development and are unchanged from the prior month. Preliminary numbers show that employment was down 1,200 jobs, which is about 0.4 percent.
The three industries with the largest declines in April were retail (-600), oil and gas (-500) and local government (-500). Health care and manufacturing added jobs with 1,000 and 400 respectively. A potential good sign is that construction had the same amount of jobs in April 2017 as it did in 2018, which may signal future growth. Construction has seen big losses in the recent past, and this might be the start of a turnaround.
Even with the good news in construction, April 2018 was the 31st consecutive month that Alaska has lost jobs. This is six months longer than the job loss during the 1980’s recession. Even though this recession has had a longer period of job loss, the losses were deeper in the 1980s.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for April was 7.3, which is where it has been for the past four months. The rate is only slightly higher than the 10 year average of 7.2 percent, but is well above the national average which is 3.9 percent, which is the lowest it has been in 18 years.
There have not been any significant or surprising changes to the not-seasonally adjusted numbers. Tourism and fishing has brought increases to the usual boroughs and census areas. For detailed statistics, please visit the State of Alaska.
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