KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
Jay Barrett/KMXT
The state Department of Labor has released its April unemployment figures, and as is usual when fishing picks up, the number of people with jobs has increased.
The department pegs the statewide rate at 6.7 percent, down from 7.5 in March and 7.1 a year earlier.
Kodiak remains a community with one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state, at 4.7 percent. That compares to 5.1 in March and 5.5 a year ago.
In hard numbers, 313 Kodiak residents are seeking work, compared to 339 in March. Statewide, 25,319 are unemployed, down nearly two thousand from March.
The highest unemployment rates, in the teens and in one case into the 20s, are limited to villages in wide swaths of bush Alaska.
