According to Alaska Economic Trends: January 2025, the monthly magazine of the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development research and analysis section, moderate growth is the economic outlook for Alaska in 2025. The issue said statewide job growth is forecasted to be 1.6%, with 5,300 jobs added.
“Alaska is still pretty steady as she goes, as far as how many jobs we’ve been adding back every year, but nationally it’s slowed down,” Karinne Wiebold, the state labor economist who wrote the article detailing the statewide employment forecast, told the Alaska Beacon.
Photo Courtesy Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development
The analysis comes weeks after Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy released his proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 budget — July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026 — on Dec. 12. The proposal includes funding for the Department of Labor and Workforce Development to expand opportunities in the skilled trades, including support for workforce development goals and expansion of career and technical education across the state. The 34th Alaska Legislature will convene in Juneau and take up the proposed FY26 budget on Jan. 21.
The January forecast says Alaska’s job growth rate was slightly more than the rest of the county beginning in 2023 and is expected to continue in 2025.
The construction industry is expected to be one of the sources of employment growth in The Last Frontier.
Thanks largely to federal funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, construction will continue to have robust increases this year with a 7.9% job increase.
Wiebold told the Alaska Beacon that any federal budget cuts should not affect federally funded infrastructure projects as money from the bill has already been allocated.
Photo Courtesy Governor Mike Dunleavy
According to the analysis, the oil industry is also set to add jobs, a gain of 600 in 2025, an increase of 7.4% from 2024 levels. Total employment in the oil and gas industry is expected to average 8,700 jobs a month. This expansion can be seen in the state’s oil and gas ventures continuing to progress, including the Willow and Pikka projects.
The Willow Project is a venture from ConocoPhillips, Alaska’s largest crude oil producer, to extract oil and gas from areas within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, located on the North Slope. The project’s 2023 final record decision allows 199 wells and three pipeline pads. A lot of new infrastructure work will go to support the Willow project. Gravel roads, a gravel mine, airstrips, pipelines, and module transfer islands will be needed to aid deliveries via sealift barge.
Photo Courtesy Enrico Blasutto
Pikka is an oil field planned by Santos — the operator — and Repsol for the North Slope. It is projected to create thousands of jobs during its construction phase, with Phase 1 expected to be completed in 2025.
The healthcare industry is expected to gain 1,000 jobs, a 2.9% increase over 2024. The economic forecast points to this growth as a result of “the rising needs of an aging population.”
The analysis states a fact from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the state had 10 physicians per 10,000 people in 1985, which grew to 28.3 by 2019.
Outside of the statewide outlook, the issue took specific looks at Anchorage, Fairbanks, and the state’s Southeast region. In Anchorage, the state’s most populous city, the construction and air cargo industries will create jobs in 2025, according to its forecast written by Sam Tappen. In the Fairbanks North Star Borough, the transportation, warehousing, and utilities industry is expected to have the biggest percentage increase in jobs, at 8.3%.
Photo Courtesy Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development
The Southeast region, including Juneau, Sitka, and Petersburg, will see employment growth in the leisure and hospitality industry, which is expected to grow by 6.5% in 2025. This part of the forecast, written by Dan Robinson, said Alaska had a record cruise ship year in 2024, with the number of passengers now estimated at about 1.8 million.
