KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
The state’s unemployment rate is now below that of the Lower 48, and Kodiak’s unemployment rate is also bucking the trend.
State figures show 8.5 percent of the borough’s workforce to have filed for unemployment benefits in June, compared to 9.1 percent a year ago. That relates to 553 unemployed now, compared to 609 last year. Despite the canneries gearing up for salmon, the rate grew nine-tenths of a percentage point in June over May this year.
The Wade-Hampton Census Area, that is, the northern Yukon Delta, once again recorded the highest rate of unemployment with nearly a third of the workforce idle. The tiny Denali and Bristol Bay boroughs each had the lowest rates in the state at 3.2 percent. In Anchorage, it was 7.3 percent.
Statewide, the unemployment rate is 8.4 percent, fully one percentage point lower than the rest of the nation. The state’s rate in June represents an overall loss of 11-hundred jobs, most of those coming in the construction and the retail trades. As you might expect, seafood processing jobs statewide almost doubled from May to June. Jobs in healthcare also increased, as did government employment and jobs in the oil and gas industry.
