Alaska’s most significant recession since the oil bust of the 1980s appears to be abating.<\/p>\n
In its annual forecast of the state’s employment picture, the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development predicts that Alaska will continue to lose jobs in 2018, but at a lower rate than in 2017 or 2016.<\/p>\n
“Generally speaking, we forecast that it’s going to be another year of moderate losses,” state economist Karinne Wiebold said by phone on Wednesday. “The job losses are slowing; we’re still losing jobs, but we’re not losing them at the same rate as we had.”<\/p>\n
“The badness is weakening,” said Brian Holst, executive director of the Juneau Economic Development Council, summarizing the report.<\/p>\n
Wiebold is the author of the statewide forecast published this week in the January issue of Alaska Trends<\/a>, the economic journal published by the Department of Labor.<\/p>\n According to the forecast, Alaska is expected to lose about 1,800 jobs in 2018, or about half a percent of the state’s total.<\/p>\n That’s better than 2016, when the state lost 6,300 jobs, about 1.9 percent of its workforce, amid plunging oil and gas prices and cuts to state government. Figures for 2017 have not been finalized, Wiebold said, but preliminary figures show those losses moderated in 2017: 3,600 jobs, or about 1.1 percent.<\/p>\n Forecasts are based on a variety of data, Wiebold said, including information from employers, local conditions and educated guesses about what the Alaska Legislature might do with the state budget.<\/p>\n It isn’t an exact science: Last year at this time, the Department of Labor was pessimistically forecasting<\/a> the state would lose twice as many jobs as it actually did. In 2016, the forecast was overly optimistic<\/a>, calling for a drop of 0.7 percent.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the Department of Labor estimate is the best available.<\/p>\n “I think they nailed it,” said Meilani Schijvens of Rain Coast Data in Juneau.<\/p>\n Schijvens studies the Southeast economy and said the state forecast matches what she knows of conditions locally.<\/p>\n This year, Wiebold said the biggest uncertainty is about how the Alaska Legislature will close the state’s multibillion-dollar deficit, which is estimated at $2.7 billion for the fiscal year that starts July 1.<\/p>\n