By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon

If built as proposed, the trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline is expected to create thousands of jobs. Many, if not most, will go to people who don’t live in Alaska.

A six-year-old study, commissioned by the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. as part of the project’s environmental statement, says “an estimated 22 to 68 percent of the construction jobs would likely be filled by non-residents, depending on the construction year.”

The high end of that estimate is significantly higher than the state’s norm — last year, 23.4% of all construction jobs in Alaska were held by people who don’t live in the state. 

The difference is likely because specialty jobs needed during construction — pipeline welders, for example — aren’t common in Alaska. Last year, more than 42% of all welding jobs in the state were held by nonresidents, according to figures published by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. 

Joelle Hall, president of the Alaska AFL-CIO, said that while new hires might not all be Alaskans, they will have the opportunity to become Alaskans, just as the builders of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline system did.

“There will be, just as it was on TAPS — most of those were not Alaskans, they became Alaskans. That’s one of the opportunities to look at here,” she said.

As the Alaska Legislature debates a multibillion-dollar tax break for the pipeline project, legislators are considering whether to tie that tax break to labor requirements that could require pipeline developers to hire more Alaskans.

Last month, the Alaska Senate voted 16-4 to mandate a certain level of apprentice hiring, something that could increase the number of jobs available to new Alaskans or those starting to learn a trade.

The latest version of the tax-break bill, released last week by legislative negotiators, eliminates that mandate but requires project-labor agreements that maximize opportunities for Alaskans who already have needed qualifications, said Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau and author of the apprentice hiring proposal.

Hall said she hopes the apprenticeship mandate returns, but even if it doesn’t, the project would offer young Alaskans a chance to be trained as electricians, plumbers and in other construction-related trades.

They would be able to keep those skills and replace retiring construction workers.

“We are going to have such an opportunity to get these jobs … and then they can go on to full careers,” Hall said. “The graying of the construction workforce is such a big problem, and this is an opportunity to change that graying.” 

Current estimates suggest the project would create a large number of temporary and permanent jobs but significantly fewer than were created by the trans-Alaska oil pipeline in the 1970s.

“I’ve read that during the development stage, there’ll be something like 12,000 jobs attached to this project,” said Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, in a June 27 hearing.

Adam Prestidge, president of Glenfarne Alaska, jumped in.

“Just to clarify, when we talk about jobs created, it’s approximately 7,000 for the construction of the pipeline, an additional 5,000 for the construction of the LNG facility. When it goes into full operation, you’re looking at a much lower number, around 1,000 permanent, 1,500 permanent operational jobs,” he said.

Tim Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for Glenfarne Alaska, confirmed the figures by email and added: “These are direct jobs and these numbers do not include additional indirect jobs. Glenfarne has not provided an update to the in-state/out-of-state estimates.” 

In 1978, the Alaska Department of Labor concluded that more than 23,000 people were simultaneously employed at the peak of oil pipeline construction.

As currently planned, the gas pipeline project would be built in two phases, with the pipeline first and supporting infrastructure second. That means the 12,000 jobs expected by the project won’t come all at once, and peak employment will be well below what happened during the oil pipeline boom.

In addition, Alaska’s population is much larger than it was during the 1970s, further diluting the impact of construction employment. Last year, the state had 321,500 workers in January and 360,000 in July — the boom created by pipeline employment will be smaller than the one that already occurs each summer with tourism and fishing jobs.

What would be different is the value of each job — lawmakers are planning to mandate agreements that would require workers be paid high wages. 

“There’s going to be a level of rearranging of the workforce that’s going to be pretty dramatic. If you’re a guy working at the Jiffy Lube, you could probably go … and be dispatched to do the same job on the pipeline and make vastly more money,” Hall said.

A successful project would create permanent, high-paid jobs.

“Project operation would require about 980 permanent personnel per year,” AGDC estimated in 2020, predicting that most jobs would be based in Anchorage and would go to in-state residents.

For the moment, those benefits remain hypothetical, and the state’s 1978 study provides an inadvertent cautionary note.

“Construction of the proposed gas pipeline project is planned to begin in 1981 – less than three years from now,” it said. “Alaska citizens and lawmakers are now meeting to lay out guidelines in preparation for pipeline construction in an attempt to maximize stable growth and to minimize the disruption which will result from such a large scale construction project.”