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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
April 2006

Vol. 11, No. 16 Week of April 16, 2006

Alaska job growth averages 1.9 percent in 2005

Oil and gas industry jobs up 500, average 8,700 last year, up 6.1 percent from 2004, nearly back to 2002 job levels in state

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Alaska’s oil and gas and mining industries added 700 new jobs in 2005, an annualized growth rate of 7.3 percent, the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development said in its April issue of “Alaska Economic Trends.”

Economist Dan Robinson, reviewing overall state economic growth, said Alaska has had 18 years of consecutive job growth.

Oil and gas averaged 8,700 jobs in the state in 2005, an increase of 500 over 2004, up 6.1 percent. “Several consecutive years of high prices have stimulated both exploration and development, and employment levels have nearly bounced back to 2002 levels after a steep drop in 2003,” he said.

Mining employment increased 200 in 2005. Red Dog, Fort Knox and Greens Creek account for nearly 75 percent of “wage and salary mining employment in Alaska,” Robinson said, and the three mines combined added almost 100 jobs last year. Mining accounted for some 1,600 jobs in the state in 2005.

Total non-farm wage and salary employment in the state was 309,000 in 2005, up 5,700 from 304,200 in 2004. The numbers exclude self-employed workers, fishermen, domestic workers, unpaid family workers, nonprofit volunteers and uniformed military.

Oil job growth in Anchorage, Fairbanks, northern Alaska

Economist Neal Fried said Anchorage employment grew 1.9 percent in 2005, an increase of 2,700 jobs.

“Finally, after years of strong oil prices, a modest rebound in oil industry employment started in 2005, as Anchorage had 100 more oil industry jobs than it did in 2004,” Fried said, noting that the statewide recovery in oil and gas industry jobs “was considerably stronger.” BP has announced plans to add additional workers, “a significant shift from the recent past when they trimmed their work force and closed their Alaska exploration office.” There are 2,000 oil and gas employees in Anchorage, compared to 1,900 in 2004.

Economist Brigitta Windisch-Cole said Fairbanks continued a 16-year trend of job growth in 2005, with natural resource employment gains coming “primarily from the oil field services industry that helped install and build technical upgrades for the trans-Alaska oil pipeline,” a project which created most of the industry’s 100-job gain.

In the Gulf Coast region, which includes the Kenai Peninsula Borough, oil and gas jobs held steady at 1,000.

In the northern region of the state employment grew after two years of declines, with a gain of 250 jobs. “Most of the new jobs came from the oil industry, which added 350 jobs and posted a growth rate of 7.3 percent in 2005,” Windisch-Cole said. Activities on the North Slope included renewed exploration, large maintenance programs, facility upgrades and infrastructure renewals, she said.

Oil and gas employment in the state stood at 8,400 in January 2005 and peaked at 9,000 in October and December.

The department notes that numbers in Anchorage/Mat-Su and Fairbanks are rounded to the nearest 100 to meet U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics standards; numbers in other areas of the state are rounded to the nearest 50 because the numbers are generally smaller.






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