Alaska’s March employment was down 6.9% from March 2020 — a loss of 21,900 jobs — as the pandemic continued to keep job counts well below year-ago levels, according to the latest release from the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Leisure and hospitality continued to record the largest losses, with 7,200 fewer jobs than the previous March, a drop of 23.2%. Oil and gas employment was down 3,600, a drop of 36.4%. Professional and business services had 2,500 fewer jobs, a drop of 9.1%. The transportation, warehousing and utilities sector was down 2,000, a drop of 10%, and the job count in private education and health care was 1,500 lower, a drop of 2.9%.
State government’s job count was 200 above the previous March, mostly from pandemic-related hires in public health and unemployment insurance. Federal employment was down 500 from last March, when the 2020 Census was under way. Local government losses were largest with a drop of 2,000, primarily in K-12 public education.
The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained 6.6% in March. The comparable U.S. rate dropped from 6.2% to 6.0%.
Alaska’s unemployment rate has been a misleading economic indicator during COVID-affected months. Key inputs come from a household survey that has been harder to conduct and has produced data that are out of sync with job numbers and unemployment insurance claims. Job losses remain historically large, and the second week of March had five times the unemployment claims of the same week in 2020.