IT IS THAT TIME OF YEAR: SOUTHEAST WELCOMES ITS SUMMER NONRESIDENT WORKERS The seasonal inflow of summer workers in the tourism and seafood processing industries is about to begin in Southeast Alaska. The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Research and Analysis Section, is required to track statistics on nonresident employment in the state, and their report for 2013 was recently released. In 2013, the Southeast region totaled 49,061 workers cumulatively filling job positions over the course of the year. Overall, 66 percent of workers in the region make their home in Southeast Alaska, 26 percent worked here while claiming residency outside of Alaska, and 8 percent worked here while claiming residency in another region of Alaska. Behind this average are some large differences in the nonresident worker percentages in specific industries. In addition, in some industries nonresidents work only short-term or seasonal jobs, such as in seafood processing and tourism. State and local government employment had a low, but not zero, nonresident workforce, at 6 and 8 percent, respectively. At the other extreme, manufacturing, with 5,160 workers largely in the seafood processing industry, had a 71 percent nonresident workforce. The mining industry, with 1,035 workers, had 45 percent nonresidents and an additional 17 percent who claimed residency in another region of Alaska. The charts below show the overall percent of local resident, other Alaska residents, and nonresident percentages for the region's three largest communities.

You can see the latest updated air passenger volumes, along with other community economic indicators, on JEDC's website, at JEDC.org