Business

State economists are predicting modest job growth in 2024 across Alaska in a new report released Tuesday by the state labor department. Officials anticipate Alaska employers will add some 5,400 jobs, a 1.7% increase.

After substantial job losses in 2020, employment has grown steadily since 2021 at more than 2% per year. Labor department economist Karinne Wiebold, who wrote the report, said in an interview that the slightly weaker forecast for 2024 reflects larger trends.

“Really, the story here is that we’re out of the COVID recovery, big picture, and we’re moving into this new phase where we’re going to be absorbing this infrastructure money that’s been coming from the federal government as part of the Infrastructure (Investment and Jobs) Act, and also the Inflation Reduction Act,” Wiebold said. “Those dollars we expect to start hitting the pavement this year, and that’s going to be one of our primary drivers for growth this coming year.”

Construction is expected to add 1,100 jobs, an increase of 6.7%. Employment in the mining and the oil industry is another bright spot in the forecast, predicted to grow 8.7%, or 1,000 jobs. Economists point to a new gold mine near Tok set to begin production this year and preliminary work expected on the Willow and Pikka oilfields.

But as with any forecast, there’s a lot up in the air. An unexpected national or international recession could put a damper on tourism numbers. Delays on infrastructure projects could push back construction hiring. But the biggest headwind, Wiebold said, is the persistent labor shortage. There are twice as many job openings as unemployed people in the state.

“If we don’t have the people to fill those jobs, then those jobs, in a sense, haven’t been created,” she said. “So that’s really the kind of the wild card: are there going to be the people to fill the jobs in the places and at the times that we need them?”

The report points to two factors making the labor shortage especially acute in Alaska. For one, a large portion of the state’s population is aging into retirement. For another, more working-age people between 18 and 64 years old are leaving the state than moving in — especially young families in their 20s and 30s.

Between 2013 and 2022, the state’s population was essentially flat, losing just about 1,000 people. But over that same period, as the population grew older, the state lost 30,000 working-age adults and 18,000 jobs, according to Wiebold. About 40% of those losses came from the oil and gas industry, according to state economic data.

And Wiebold says even industries like fish processing and tourism that tend to import their workers from out of state could find themselves struggling to hire.

“If we can’t draw some of those out-of-state workers up here this year because they have opportunities that are closer to home, or perhaps that pay more, then we could be struggling to fill jobs in industries that regularly rely on that out-of-state workforce,” she said.

Wiebold cited the labor shortage as one reason that jobs in leisure and hospitality are forecast to grow a modest 1.4% despite cruise ship visitor numbers forecast to reach or exceed last year’s records.

Jobs in manufacturing, finance and the information sector are expected to underperform other industries with zero growth, though none are forecast to shed workers.

The data excludes people who are self-employed, farm workers, domestic workers, unpaid family workers, uniformed military members and most commercial fishermen.

Major changes to Alaska’s alcohol industry will come into effect Monday, which business owners and public health groups say will improve public safety and better match how Alaskans now consume alcohol. State regulators are scrambling to ensure business owners are in compliance with the new law.

The Alaska Legislature passed Senate Bill 9 in 2022 after a decade of attempts to modernize the alcohol industry. Regulators were given 18 months to develop the new rules, which affect licensing, how alcohol can be delivered across Alaska and the enforcement of alcohol laws.

For patrons, there will be immediate changes starting Jan. 1. Taprooms at breweries and distilleries will be able to stay open until 9 p.m. Current law requires them to close at 8 p.m.

Taprooms are currently barred from holding live events, but the new regulations allow them to hold a limited number per year. Other restrictions remain in place: no TVs, no chairs or stools at the taproom bar, and limited serving sizes. And, among many other changes in the law, liquor stores will be able to hold events and serve alcohol samples.

The 127-page alcohol bill was intended to end the “bar wars” — a long-running conflict between traditional bars and breweries over the cost of licenses, manufacturing equipment and how both business types operate.

Lee Ellis, owner of Midnight Sun Brewing Co., said a “huge” change from the new law is that business owners can have multiple, overlapping licenses, melding roles between businesses that were previously kept separate in statute.

Breweries will be able to host restaurants with fewer operating restrictions and sell other brewers’ beer. Traditional bar owners were prohibited from manufacturing their own drinks — for example, brewing beer — but now that will also be possible.

Ellis, who is also president of the Brewers Guild of Alaska, surveyed members last year and found that 88% were interested in new licenses to operate with fewer restrictions as a bar or when hosting a restaurant. He said for brewers and distillers, the new law represents the biggest expansion of privileges since Prohibition.

Midnight Sun is in the process of applying for a restaurant endorsement that will allow it to hold more live events, to sell cider and to stay open after 9 p.m., Ellis said. Those changes are set to come into effect in April.

“We’ll still be able to do everything we’re doing now, and just more,” Ellis said.

Evan Wood, one of the founders of Devil’s Club Brewing, said the change he is most excited about is holding live events at the downtown Juneau tasting room. Those could be theater performances, movie premieres or concerts, he said, but they will be limited to four events per year.

“We’re still exploring what kind of fun and exciting events we could do to try to draw as many people as possible,” he said.

Wood said often when regulatory changes are made to the alcohol industry, the general public doesn’t notice. With broad changes for tasting rooms, bars and how alcohol is delivered across Alaska — that won’t be the case this time, he said.

“I think this is just going to be an exciting year for the alcohol industry at large,” he said. “Because I think that there’s some really exciting changes happening for a lot of different license types.”

Public safety

Public health and safety groups championed the new law as a way to address high rates of alcohol abuse and alcohol-related deaths in Alaska, which have been twice the national average.

New mandatory beer keg registrations are intended to limit underage drinking, and there will be updated population-based limits on the number of new taprooms that can operate in a town or a city, intended to prevent an overabundance of alcohol in communities.

The state will start to license companies that ship alcohol, taxing those businesses for the first time. Licensing will help police fight bootlegging to the state’s “dry” communities, proponents say.

The law will also bring changes to enforcement of alcohol offenses, starting Monday. Licensees can be held partially liable for some violations, like serving alcohol to minors.

Because the Alaska Department of Law rarely prosecutes misdemeanors, many low-level alcohol crimes will instead become citations. Underage drinking violations will remain a misdemeanor, but shipping alcohol without a state endorsement will become a $500 fine.

Joan Wilson, executive director of Alaska’s Alcohol & Marijuana Control Office, said the shift to citations should increase accountability.

There have been outreach efforts with law enforcement officers across the state to define the new role for police and alcohol regulators, she said, allowing law enforcement to focus on more serious public safety issues while regulators focus on licensing.

Licensing race

Staff at the state’s alcohol regulator are working overtime to ensure all businesses are in compliance with the new law by the start of the new year.

Breweries and distilleries need to file applications to keep their taprooms open. Wilson said just 40 of 90 licensees had done so as of Tuesday evening.

Bars and clubs that operate restaurants need to file so minors over the age of 16 can still be served and be employed. Around 105 have applied out of 440 that need to, Wilson said.

“We’re not going to shut folks down, but they will be out of compliance with the new law and we’ll continue to work with them,” Wilson said about the Dec. 31 deadline. “But they risk fines and other consequences, which I don’t want to happen to anybody.”

The new law authorized regulators to open license applications in September. Wilson said she wished that licenses would automatically convert if no changes were proposed, but that wasn’t how the law was written.

The Alaska Department of Commerce and Economic Development recently launched a new online portal for licensees. Paper applications will still be accepted.

Sarah Oates, president and CEO of CHARR, Alaska’s leading alcohol-industry trade group, said overall, the rollout of the new law had been going well, but there have been some kinks. The trade group has been helping inform its members about the new requirements.

“For those businesses who do not do things on the internet, the transition for them is going to take more time,” Oates said.

After much legislative debate, the alcohol law came with limits on the number of new taprooms allowed, based on the size of a community’s population. Existing taprooms are grandfathered into the new regulatory system.

In communities already over population limits, Wilson said tardy licensees could face risks. New applicants could theoretically swoop in and take licenses from existing brewers and distillers who wait too long to file a new application.

“That’s why it’s really important to get their application in, because I don’t want people to lose their grandfather rights,” Wilson said. “So suppose they applied three months late and someone came in and took the one available for retail — they’re out of luck.”

Flight attendants in Anchorage marched Tuesday to demand higher wages from Alaska Airlines. The protest was one of several happening around the country on the same day, in an organized effort to pressure the airline.

Dozens of flight attendants, and a few pilots, turned out carrying signs and chanting slogans as they marched in the snow outside Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

The protestors shouted refrains like, “What do we want? Contract! When do we want it? Now! And if we don’t get it? Shut it down!”

Thresia Raynor is an Alaska flight attendant who leads local union mobilization efforts, and was frustrated that the 14-month-long contact negotiation hasn’t been more fruitful. Raynor said the starting salary for a full-time flight attendant is about $24,000 a year, and many of her colleagues are homeless or struggling with food insecurity.

“Many of our flight attendants are living in poverty, have eviction notices on their front door,” she said. “They’re real everyday humans in Anchorage and all over the state of Alaska and all over the Pacific Northwest that are unable to live on their wages with just one job.”

Raynor said those wages increase with seniority, but said even some veteran workers with more than a decade of experience qualify for subsidized healthcare or food assistance.

The Alaska Airlines flight attendants said Tuesday that they will vote to authorize a strike. That would require approval from national mediators, so Raynor said the process may take months, but that they will be ready if and when that day comes.

Tuesday’s protest comes just weeks after Alaska Airlines announced plans to purchase Hawaiian Airlines for $1.9 billion. Raynor said that may actually help speed things up, because a merger can’t go through until all contracts are in place.

“But at the same time, it’s a little salt in the wound when the company says it’s not economically viable to pay us a living wage, but they can scrape together two billion in cash to pay for an air carrier,” Raynor said.

Alaska Airlines referred inquiries to a web post that said the company respects employees’ right to demonstrate and that they recently provided a proposal that included 15% pay raises.

Raynor disagreed with the airline’s messaging, saying flight attendants are committed to voting for a strike and creating “chaos” until they receive a livable wage.

At a recent, cold lunch hour in Vintage Park Business Center, many customers waited in their cars for crepes or burgers. In an open lot between office buildings and a senior center, two food trucks stood by the wood frame of what will become a covered seating area. 

April Sapp walked over from the nearby Jordan Creek Family Health Care office. She ordered a cheeseburger and gyro sandwich from one of the trucks.

“I’m very excited about this,” she said.

Before, she likely would have had to drive to a supermarket for lunch.

“Now we just walk,” Sapp said.

The new food truck park opened this month. It’s also in the Mendenhall Valley, miles away from the cruise ship docks downtown. Many Juneau restaurants rely on summer tourists, which can leave fewer options for locals in the winter. 

One of the trucks, Alaskan Crepe Escape, is better known for serving its sweet and savory crepes from a stand downtown during cruise season. And so far, owner Madelynne McKeown said things are a lot different out in the valley. For one, they have regulars.

“We’re realizing and learning how much these people are going to be the same people we see. Which is also really fun because we get to know people better, meet more people and stuff,” she said.

The park will have more options soon — a taco truck, one with Filipino food, and a beer and wine cart. But by setting up shop in the winter — and 9 miles from downtown — all of these businesses are taking a leap of faith. 

Brian Holst, with the Juneau Economic Development Council, said the city’s restaurants typically rely heavily on summer tourists to stay afloat. 

“Most of them will tell you that it’s much harder to make ends meet in the wintertime,” he said. “And those — particularly downtown and those that are where visitors frequent — really count on making most of their profit in the summertime, so that it carries them through in the wintertime.”

That’s been true for Pucker Wilsonʼs, which serves burgers out of two purple food trucks — a downtown location that closes in the off-season and one in the valley that stays open all year. But owner Chad Edwards said staying open in the winter hasnʼt been easy.

“Operating costs for us are much higher in the winter, and revenue is much lower. I haven’t figured any way around it,” Edwards said. “That’s just the way it is.”

Edwardsʼ biggest focus, he said, is keeping his staff around. 

“You need to pay your crew really well,” he said. “And you need to be busy. Otherwise, you’ve got people standing around in a literally, like, a 40 degree box, who have run out of things to clean and they’re thinking about how they would rather be somewhere else — like anywhere else, you know?”

McKeown’s father, Marty, owns the food truck park. He said he hopes the location will mean that the food truck workers won’t be standing around. He said it’s filling a need for nearby office workers, as well as health care workers at the senior center and the new SouthEast Regional Health Consortium campus. 

“We don’t have any food over here,” McKeown said. “Everybody’s been saying that they’re very pleased to have more options in the valley.”

The other truck at the park is Devil’s Hideaway, a burgers-and-wings spot that used to operate out of Squirez Bar in Auke Bay. Owner Anthony Kanouse said he likes the prospect of serving regulars.

“I’ve never wanted to be downtown in the summer, just because it goes from trying to do something unique to mass producing,” he said.

But will it work? Holst, with the Juneau Economic Development Council, said he thinks the food truck model — which lets different kinds of food spots get started at a lower cost than a traditional restaurant — increases the odds. 

Holst said legislative staff — who are in town from January to May — are another possible source of business for the park because they’re more likely now to live and spend money in the valley. Ten or 15 years ago, he said, they mostly stayed downtown.

“I trust that Juneauites will recognize that they’re gonna have a lot of good options, and they’re gonna be busy,” he said.

Madelynne McKeown said she sees another benefit of the year-round park. It helps her retain employees.

“I had so many girls that I was like, ‘I need another location to get these girls the hours that they need.’ And so I’m really excited about that, especially for summertime, because I’ll be able to staff up everybody, and then I’ll have more retention that way,” she said.

Marty McKeown said the winter opening wasn’t intentional — the contractor he hired was busy all summer. But he’s heard that people are happy with the food truck park so far. 

Ketchikan residents will no longer have access to cable television starting next fall. Ketchikan Public Utilities, the island’s last provider, announced it would be sunsetting cable services next year. KPU says that subscribers have gone down and operation costs have gone up as people nationwide turn away from local TV and towards streaming services.

It’s a commercial longtime Ketchikan residents might recognize.

“Are you sitting at home wondering exactly how windy it is? Exactly how cold?” KPU TV’s Michelle O’Brien asks the viewer in the 2010 ad. She is standing on a beach in jeans and a windbreaker. Snow is flying past her sideways. “It’s freezing! Only KPU has the only truly local weather node located right here in Bar Harbor.“

The video quality seems grainy for something made just over a decade ago. But soon, cable commercials like this one are going to be even more of a relic in Ketchikan.

By September of 2024, cable cords in every household will be cut. KPU Telecommunications announced on Dec. 4 that it can no longer compete with providers offering video streaming services.

“When you have large companies, you know – Hulu, Fubo, Netflix, YouTube TV, I mean, there’s a whole bunch of them – they’re all trying to increase their market share and it’s disrupting the whole marketplace, but this transition’s been in play for 10 years and it’s kind of just accelerated in the last five,” said Dan Lindgren, KPU telecommunications manager.

Lingren has a cable box in his home. When asked if he’s going to miss it, he doesn’t get sentimental.

“No, nope. I’m ready to completely transition for sure,” Lindgren said.

There are many who aren’t though. Lindgren estimated currently about 20% of KPU customers are cable subscribers. He knows that this transition won’t be easy for some.

Specifically, the older demographic that may not be used to smart TVs and the overwhelming number of streaming options available. Lindgren assured that they won’t be left behind in the transition though.

“We will really have a focused effort on making sure that we support them and do everything we can to make sure that they have their video entertainment needs fulfilled,” he said.

He noted that for KPU, it’s not just that less people are tuning in to cable TV but that it’s getting more expensive to offer.

“You know, we just got to the point where it just doesn’t make sense anymore,” Lindgren said.

People who watch KPU cable do so on set-top boxes. Lindgren explained that equipment is becoming obsolete faster and faster, and they can’t replace every box on the island, in addition to more costly content and licensing fees.

GCI, the other cable provider in Ketchikan, suspended service in 2021.

Ketchikan’s cable system was the first in the state. In October of 1953, cable television debuted in the Elks Club and a few bars around town. Anchorage got cable a couple months later.

KPU TV didn’t come along until 2005 though, according to Lindgren. When they did, they offered local programming like the show “Live in Ketchikan.”

In a press release, KPU assured customers that it will still produce local content such as high school sports, arts, cultural events, and other community-focused video content. It will just be streamed exclusively on internet and mobile apps.

Get in touch with the author at jack@krbd.org.

Juneau residents have until Christmas to send in comments about the potential environmental impacts of a proposed municipal compost facility. They’re outlined in an environmental assessment released in late November. 

The 30-day public comment period is open through Dec. 25 and is one of the first steps needed for the city to move the project forward. The facility is initially being funded by federal dollars. Last December, $2.5 million for its design and construction was earmarked in the $1.7 trillion spending bill passed by Congress. 

The facility has a long way to go before construction begins. It’s estimated it won’t open to the public until 2027 at the earliest and could cost upwards of $7 million, according to Dianna Robinson, an environmental project specialist for the city’s Engineering and Public Works Department. 

Robinson said once up and running though, it could divert 22% of the annual waste stream from Juneau’s only landfill. That’s needed – the privately owned Capitol Disposal Landfill in the Lemon Creek area is only expected to last around 20 more years.

“The Assembly’s goal is to divert as much from the landfill, both for the environmental impacts but also to extend the life of our landfill,” she said. 

The two to five-acre facility is proposed at the former Lemon Creek gravel pit. According to the environmental assessment released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, no significant environmental impacts are anticipated.

Juneau resident Lisa Daugherty is the owner of Juneau Composts. It’s a privately owned compost facility she’s run for the past seven years. The business has been leasing CBJ land in Lemon Creek for its efforts since 2019. It’s a short walk away from the proposed site.

Daugherty has expressed concerns about what the new facility will mean for her business and fears it could put her out of work. Recently, she created a petition asking the city to put out a request for proposals and ideally chose her to collaborate with on the design and construction process. So far it has gained 670 signatures. 

However, the city plans to wait until the project is complete before finding a partner. Daugherty said that’s far too late. 

“I can’t continue to operate my business in this unknown if someone else is gonna get that contract in a few years,” she said. “It puts me in this space where I can’t continue to invest in my business unless I know if I’m that partner or not.”

Robinson said the city is aware of Daugherty’s concerns, however, she said it is too early in the process to begin seeking out a private business to contract with. 

“We’re very confident that we’re going to be contracting it out to a private entity to run, just like we do with our recycling and our household hazardous waste,” she said. “But really, right now, what it boils down to is that we’re just nowhere near ready for something like that.”