Alaska seafood processing workers made more money in 2023, but they were fewer in number

Alaska seafood processors are hiring fewer people in 2023 but paying them more and relying more on nonresidents to fill jobs, a state analysis shows.

Dan Robinson, a state economist who writes an analysis for the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development’s monthly magazine, said employment trends are about what would be expected in an industry struggling to find workers.

“I think it’s because they have to work harder to find workers and pay workers more to come there,” said Robinson, the department’s research chief and author of the book. article In the November issue of Alaska Economic Trends.

The analysis shows the number of seafood processing jobs in Alaska reaching 8,495 in 2023, about 20% lower than the 2014 total. At the same time, the $626 million in total wages paid to processing workers last year was nearly 30% higher than the $482 million in total wages in 2014 calculated in 2023 dollars, according to the analysis.

The analysis found that the median monthly wage for seafood workers in 2023 was $6,100, exceeding the statewide average of $5,700 for all workers.

Yet machining workers made more money countless troubles Market erosion is impacting the Alaska seafood industry, including lower fish prices and rising costs.

Robinson said it’s unclear whether the inflation-adjusted increase in processor workers’ earnings was due to higher base pay or increased overtime pay. The Ministry does not have the information necessary to make this distinction.

Rising earnings of both types and declining total jobs point to the same root cause, he said.

“Lower employment, higher wages, the stench of having to find enough people and pay them more,” he said.

According to the ministry’s analysis, non-residents made up 82.3% of the seafood processing workforce in 2023. Nonresidents have long made up the majority of seafood processing workers, but the proportion has risen in recent years from about three-quarters from 2014 to 2018 to more than 80% since 2021, according to the analysis.

Workers from outside the United States were also important to the industry, but the number employed through a special visa program varied by year. In 2023, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration authorized employers in Alaska to hire 825 workers under federal law. H-2B visa programIt is a widely used product in the seafood industry. According to the government analysis, 554 of the authorized positions were for seafood processing workers.

Robinson said it’s unclear whether all 554 spots are used by the seafood industry.

In some years, far fewer seafood processing workers are hired through these visas. In 2014, for example, the federal Department of Labor accepted only one company’s request to hire workers under the H-2B program, and only 20 workers were allowed, according to Robinson’s analysis.

The full impact of the seafood plant closures that have plagued some coastal communities has yet to be determined by the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

There was a particularly devastating closure this year. Seafood factory in King Cove. The facility has been in operation for more than a century and has long been critical to the Alaska Peninsula community’s economy and major source of local tax revenue.

The Department of Labor and Workforce Development does not yet have all the information needed to analyze this year’s seafood processing employment, Robinson said.