Alaska jobs are gaining, led by busy winter construction on North Slope

Alaska jobs are showing steady gains, pushed up mainly by the surge in oil and gas work on the North Slope. This is according to data compiled by the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

Total jobs were up 2.8% in March compared with March 2023 with petroleum work gaining 6.7% compared with the same month of 2023, the department said. The data is based on monthly surveys of employers.

While work in the oil and gas industry is gaining other sectors in the economy appear stable based on the job data.

The March gain is up from a 2.6% total year-over-year gain in February with oil and gas up 6.7%, and December showing a job increase of 2.3% year-over-year with and oil and gas up 6.8% over the same period.

North Slope oil work is mainly centered in two new oil fields, Pikka and Willow, being developed by Santos Ltd. at Pikka and ConocoPhillips at Willow.

Work is being done in other North Slope oil fields, too, by ConocoPhillips in the Kuparuk River and Alpine fields and by Hilcorp Alaska in the large Prudhoe Bay field.

While oil work is picking up the industry is still not back to where it was a decade ago, before a sharp decline hit worldwide crude oil prices. Alaska oil and gas operators are employing about half the number workers they did in 2014, just before the drop in oil prices sent the industry into a sharp slump in Alaska and worldwide.

Crude oil prices eventually recovered but in 2020 and 2021 the pandemic sent another shock through the industry, slowing the recovery from the 2016 price collapse.

In 2023, however, North Slope work is boosting employment in other fields that support the petroleum industry. Transportation, for example, was up 6.7% in March compared with a year earlier, a reflection of increased trucking and logistics support work linked to oil construction.

Construction itseld was up 16.4 percent, again reflecting the busy winter season in oil field construction on the slope.

In terms of the general economy, retail jobs were stable table during March, showing little if any growth but also no declines. Leisure and hospitality, which includes restaurant and drinking establishment workers, showed slight decline in March, compared with the same month of 2023.

Health care employment was up 3.3% in March and 3.5% in February, again compared with the same month of 2023.

While the state labor department reported a 2.8 percent gain in jobs statewide in March while other data, reported in the May issue of the labor department’s Trends magazine, also reflected a stable economy.

Statewide unemployment was 4.6% in March, reflecting a tight labor market, the department reported in Trends. Total wage income was up an annual 5.4 percent in the third quarter of 2023, the most recent data available, while personal income rose 4.7 percent as of third quarter 2023, according to Trends.