1 Sections

The number of out-of-state workers in Alaska is continuing to rise and is near an all-time high, according to a new report published this week by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

In 2024, almost 23% of non-federal jobs in Alaska were held by someone who did not live in the state. Nonresidents earned roughly $3.8 billion, or about 17% of every dollar earned from a non-federal job.

In some industries, the proportion of nonresident workers was much higher:

Among oil and gas workers, 40.5% were nonresidents. Among miners, nonresidents made up 44.2% of all workers, and nonresidents averaged higher wages than residents did.

The state has been collecting nonresident worker data since 1990, and the new figures are the second-highest on record, behind only 1992, which used a different job classification system. That year, 23.7% of Alaska workers were nonresidents.

The proportion of nonresident workers has been rising steadily since the COVID-19 pandemic emergency layoffs of 2020.

Rob Krieger, an economist with the Department of Labor, wrote about the new report in an article for this month’s Alaska Trends magazine.

He noted that the rise comes amid a decline in the number of Alaskans who are between 18 and 64 years old, what economists call “prime working age.”

From 2013 to 2024, the number of Alaskans in that age range has declined by about 34,000 people, or 7%.

During that stretch, more people have moved out of the state than have moved in, and the state’s average age has risen steadily, leading to more deaths and fewer births.

“It’s pretty clear that is kind of what’s contributing to what we’re seeing with employers having to rely heavily on nonresidents,” he said.

“Every industry now is starting to lean more heavily on nonresidents, including ones that have historically not. Even things like state government and local government, we’re starting to see more nonresidents,” Krieger said.

In most industries, nonresidents earned less than residents did because nonresidents tended to hold seasonal jobs.

Across the state, nonresidents averaged $16,302 in wages for any given quarter of the year. Residents averaged $16,531, indicating that nonresidents and residents were generally paid about the same.

Gunnar Schultz, a Department of Labor analyst who compiled this year’s report, said the numbers are based on unemployment insurance reports filed by employers with the state. Alaska requires employers and employees to pay into the state’s unemployment insurance fund.

Those numbers are then contrasted with Permanent Fund dividend applications.

“Did you apply for a 2024 PFD or 2025 PFD? If you applied for neither, you’re a nonresident,” he said.

Alaska had almost 15,500 federal workers in 2024; those aren’t included in the report, nor are members of the military and self-employed Alaskans.

That last category includes many commercial fishermen.

The report separately analyzed those jobs, and based on permit data and other information, “nonresidents were an estimated 49 percent of the harvesting workforce, which includes permit holders and their crew, and nonresidents took in 57 percent of gross harvesting earnings.”

In this newscast:

• Nineteen people have applied to be the Juneau school district’s next superintendent, according to search firm McPherson & Jacobson.
• Alaska’s largest professional theater indefinitely postponed a run of its show in Anchorage this spring due to financial concerns.
• The Juneau Assembly will vote Monday night on whether to approve $2.3 million worth of city funding to support five proposed affordable housing projects.
• Alaskan Dream Cruises, a Sitka-based cruise line, is closing its doors.
• After proposing to build a new cabin near Juneau’s Herbert Glacier, the U.S. Forest Service released a draft decision last month abandoning it.

After proposing to build a new cabin near Juneau’s Herbert Glacier, the U.S. Forest Service released a draft decision last month abandoning it. 

The cabin site was initially selected due to public interest. It would have been built within a mining claim block across the river from the proposed New Amalga gold mine owned by Grande Portage Resources, Ltd. The Forest Service approved exploratory drilling at New Amalga in April. 

But Paul Robbins, a public affairs officer for Tongass National Forest, said the agency’s decision to cancel the cabin is unrelated to mining interests and is instead due to the challenging location and limited staff capacity. This comes after the agency lost a third of its staff in Alaska last year. 

“The proposed cabin site’s elevation, distance from the trail, design requirements and the need to move materials through difficult terrain all add to the complexity of that cabin project,” Robbins said.

He said the agency’s landscape architects and engineers could be overwhelmed with work if they moved forward with building the cabin.  

But some residents in Juneau submitted public comments saying they don’t believe those reasons are genuine. 

“Cancelling the project seems to be influenced by mining interest across the river which would inherently be hard to make compatible,” wrote Riley Moser, a Juneau resident. “It appears that the Forest Service is bending to corporate interests instead of listening to the needs and concerns of the public.”

Staff from the Alaska Miners Association and Grande Portage submitted comments to the agency before the draft decision, saying that building a cabin near the proposed mine could lead to disputes over how the land is used.

“Selection of a site to be used for recreational lodging, which can be easily placed anywhere, within an area of active mineral exploration could unnecessarily invite land use conflicts that do not and should not exist, and could incite litigation and appeals for years,” wrote Deantha Skibinksi, executive director of the Alaska Miners Association.

Kyle Mehalek, a technical specialist at Grande Portage, wrote that “it would be incredibly challenging, likely impossible, to protect the proposed cabin from potential visual and noise impacts with the same effectiveness as the existing trail.”

The cabin would have been part of the Alaska Cabins Project, the Forest Service’s biggest public-use cabin expansion plan in 50 years, which plans to bring around 25 new cabins to the Chugach and Tongass National Forests, including four in Juneau at Mendenhall Campground, Montana Meadows, Treadwell Ditch Trail and Dupont Beach.

Robbins said cancelling this cabin won’t affect the other proposed cabins. He said the Forest Service plans to reroute part of Herbert Glacier Trail and build a scenic overlook there instead. 

Although there is a lot of public support for building a cabin near Herbert Glacier, Robbins said the agency is unlikely to change course.

“Only because our decision was based on the complexity and capacity, not on whether or not the site was popular,” he said. “We know the site is popular, that’s why we wanted to initially build a cabin there.”

A public comment period to object to the cancellation closes March 9.

Nineteen people have applied to be Juneau School District’s next superintendent, according to search firm McPherson & Jacobson.

The job posting to replace outgoing Superintendent Frank Hauser was open for more than three weeks before closing Thursday. The search firm will use data from surveys and stakeholder meetings to narrow down the candidates.

Meanwhile, the Juneau School Board is continuing to collect public feedback.

Consultants met with various groups inside and outside of the district. Board President Britteny Cioni-Haywood said the board is heavily relying on a community survey to understand what people want to see in a superintendent.

“We’re not going to catch everyone in one-on-one meetings, and so that default is back to that survey, that then anyone in the community can have their voice heard in the process by utilizing that tool,” she said.

As of Thursday afternoon, there had been more than 300 responses to the survey, said board member David Noon, who acts as a liaison between the consultants and the board.

Within the district, search firm consultants met with several stakeholder groups, including teachers, district staff, administrators, student governments, and site council parents. They also met with the University of Alaska Southeast, U.S. Coast Guard and Juneau’s delegation of state lawmakers.

The search firm plans to hold another meeting with the district’s site councils on Thursday, Feb. 12 at 6 p.m. Only a handful of parents attended the first one on Tuesday.

Noon said the board will conduct multiple interviews with finalists before selecting a new superintendent. He said there will be some type of public forum with finalists for the position, but the board hasn’t decided on a date or specific format yet.

“As a board, we haven’t talked about what that was going to look like,” he said. “It can take any shape that we want it to.”According to the timeline for the superintendent search on the district’s website, the board plans to select a new superintendent in the second week of March. The new superintendent is expected to begin on July 1.

A Sitka-based cruise line is closing its doors. Alaskan Dream Cruises announced Wednesday that it has ceased operations and cancelled all future sailings.

In a post on its website, the cruise company said since 2011, it’s had the “privilege of sharing the wonders of Alaska and the richness of our Alaska Native heritage with incredible guests from across the globe.”

The company is owned by Allen Marine, a local maritime business that’s been offering wildlife and sightseeing tours in Southeast Alaska for about five decades.

“We’re really proud that we were a homegrown and Indigenous-owned line right here in Sitka,” said Allen Marine spokesperson Zak Kirkpatrick. “And that grew into world class cruises and winning national awards and appearing in worldwide publications, which was really something we’re proud about.”

Alaskan Dream Cruises operated four overnight cruise vessels that each held between 40 and 80 passengers, according to Kirkpatrick. Cruises lasted between five and eight nights, and offered a comprehensive look at the Inside Passage, with activities like hiking, kayaking and paddle boarding.

Kirkpatrick said the decision to get out of the overnight cruise business was “intentional and necessary” for the sustainability of the company.

“When you just kind of boil it down, the company is just planning to refocus 100% of our resources on what we consider our founding strengths and roots, which are the day tour excursions and the shipyard operations and marine services,” he said.

In 2025, Alaskan Dream Cruises employed 95 seasonal workers and about 10 year-round workers, and Allen Marine employed 305 seasonal workers and about 100 year-round workers for its other services, according to Kirkpatrick. With the closure, he said Allen Marine won’t be hiring for the overnight boats this cruise season.

The company said it’s directly communicating with all guests about reservations and processing refunds.

Alaska’s largest professional theater indefinitely postponed a run of its show in Anchorage this spring due to financial concerns. 

Perseverance Theatre had originally planned to bring its newest production, opening in Juneau later this month, to Anchorage. For the past decade, the theater has regularly run productions in both the capital city and Anchorage. But staff say the decision to postpone the latter leg came after a period of financial pressure on the national and local level.

Artistic Director Leslie Ishii said Juneau has been feeling the impacts of federal job cuts and economic strains, so less people have money for entertainment.

“Many, many jobs are gone, besides just being laid off,” she said. “So we’re feeling the effects of that as we all look around and see some shops are no longer there, or restaurants are having to cut back hours.”

The nonprofit – which relies on a number of funding streams for its budget, including support from the city, state and federal governments – considered other factors as well. That includes an upcoming $10 to $12 million budget shortfall at the city level, plus ongoing instability with the Trump administration’s efforts to cut arts spending. All of this informed the decision to not take its upcoming show, “Pueblo Revolt,” to Anchorage. Ishii said it would have cost about $60,000. 

“The good news is we’ve been able to say we want to produce this show here,” Ishii said. “We were able to keep that funding in place. But just the added cost of transferring it to Anchorage is what made it difficult to say we can still do this.”

She said so far, the theater has only seen minimal reductions in their current grants. Moving forward she is expecting that funding from all government levels will be greatly diminished. 

On a positive note, she said the Mellon Foundation – a private funder of arts and humanities programs – just renewed a two-year $500,000 grant to Perseverance. And Ishii said theater leadership is working with a financial management company that specializes in helping arts organizations budget and plan for the future. 

The theater hopes to take “Pueblo Revolt” to Anchorage later this year instead. 

Kylie Ferguson manages community partnerships with Perseverance. She said postponing the show’s run in Anchorage was a decision to maintain the theater for the future. 

“Sometimes the play doesn’t have to go on,” Ferguson said. “Sometimes it gets delayed by a few months, but it’s in service of keeping this wonderful organization around for the next generation.”

Ferguson said the Juneau community — which values its performers and the work they do — will be here to appreciate it. In 2024, Juneau was ranked third of small cities nationwide for having a vibrant arts community by SMU DataArts.