By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon
The number of people working in Alaska’s famed seafood industry has set a new record low, surpassing last year’s record low, according to figures published this month by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development in its magazine, Alaska Economic Trends.
In 2024, an average of 5,393 people were employed as fishers, processors or other seafood workers each month in Alaska, wrote analyst Joshua Warren. That’s down by 443 jobs from the same figure in 2023.
Alaska remains the No. 1 seafood producer among U.S. states, according to federal statistics, and produces more seafood than every other state combined.
The state department of labor has kept a monthly tally of seafood jobs in the state since 2001, and industry employment has been in a steady decline since 2019 due to a variety of factors, including a lack of available fish, competition from cheaper international sources, and high operating costs that can make fishing uneconomic.
Since the start of 2001, the high point of fishing employment was in 2015, when an average of 8,501 people were employed in the seafood industry each month.
Historically, seafood employment was significantly higher due to reduced rates of automation and the fact that Alaska seafood tended to be processed and packaged locally.
The modern trend has been toward direct export and processing internationally, where wages are lower.
Seafood employment in Alaska is extremely seasonal, with a peak in June and July during the salmon season and a low ebb in December, before a new season of fishing in federal waters offshore.
In July 2024, only 17,361 people worked in the Alaska seafood industry, the lowest annual peak on record since January 2021. In July 2013, the highest peak, more than 25,000 people were employed in the state’s seafood industry.
