Alaska Loses Jobs For 5th Straight Months (taxes, live)

[starlite9]

Well normally the jobs are on the up swing in the spring, then die off in the fall.... Good thing the Dem's have announced the Porkulus is working and the ression is over...

Just a funny feeling, but I think we haven't seen the worst yet...

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by starlite9

Well normally the jobs are on the up swing in the spring, then die off in the fall.... Good thing the Dem's have announced the Porkulus is working and the ression is over...

Just a funny feeling, but I think we haven't seen the worst yet...

I agree with you. We haven't seen the worst yet, and I imagine it will hit us when State of local government workers start losing their jobs and the housing market starts to drop. The only things that can save us are: the oil industry, a rebound of the national economy, and bringing a natural gas pipeline to the interior. Right now none of these looks very good. I forgot one thing, and that's the mining industry which is doing very well at the moment, specially with gold extraction. We will have to see what will happen with the Pebble mine as the State's lose of revenue progresses.

[DannyL]

Originally Posted by starlite9

Just a funny feeling, but I think we haven't seen the worst yet...

I agree also. alaska was on CNN this morning if anyone caught it, got our 10 minutes of fame with an Alaskan economist saying it's starting to hit here now, and warning people to not move up here if broke, no job, etc.
Had a few shots of the homeless in Anchorage, and a spot on the native unemployment situation.

Even here, the city is talking layoffs after the first of the year. Where I work we haven't had any layoffs, but no new hires either.
2010 is goning to be a rough one, but we'll all muddle thru it, in spite of the govt.

[Alaskapat528]

Alaska catching up with the rest of the country on recession - CNN.com

[nebulous1]

It is hitting you guys now. This has gone on in the Midwest for the past 3 decades. The news media acts like Detroit and other midwest manufacturing cities just went down overnight.
There are ghost towns in the midwest. I moved to the southwest for a job but the recession was on my heels. The southwest is hit too.
Hope things get better. We need our manufacturing base back in America, and everything, including healthcare, would take care of itself. The politicians want to address the symptoms, not the disease.

[Moose Whisperer]

Originally Posted by DannyL

Even here, the city is talking layoffs after the first of the year. Where I work we haven't had any layoffs, but no new hires either.
2010 is goning to be a rough one, but we'll all muddle thru it, in spite of the govt.

Agreed. From what I've been hearing, next year will be the first big punch delivered by the tourism industry. This year turned out to be "not quite as bad" as the pundits predicted, but the reason was the Cruise lines were caught off guard at the end of 08 and already had the ships comitted to Alaskan ports for 09. They simply stuffed vacant cabins with bargain basement fares rather than sail empty ships. Next year however a significant number of ships have been reassigned to other ports such as the Carribean. Southeast will really see a big hit next year.

This is probably the begining of the long slide for Alaska. The lower 48 will recover, but every major economic sector important to Alaska is under attack from special interests down south, or even here at home from the "big business is evil" crowd. For the longest time many mistakenly believed the Alaska was the "only game in town" for many of these industries, and that they would tolerate an ever increasing amount of abuse to countinue the "priviledge" of doing business in the state. Well, there are only so many slings and arrows you can fire at the golden goose before it finally collapses and the jobs start to go away.

[Barkingowl]

Originally Posted by Moose Whisperer

The lower 48 will recover, but every major economic sector important to Alaska is under attack from special interests down south, or even here at home from the "big business is evil" crowd.

There's no difference between the lower 48 & Alaska in terms of the depression we are in except that we down here haven't hit bottom yet & despite the dire reports in your newspapers you haven't hit where we are yet.

As for tourism its collapsing all over the lower 48 too. The cruise lines are slashing their fares for the Caribbean and for every other destination not because people don't have the money, more that they aren't going to spend it if the don't have some sense of job security.

Sort of makes you wonder what is coming in to replace "big business" or if they don't have a game plan in place and they're going to just wing it.

[Moose Whisperer]

Originally Posted by Barkingowl

Sort of makes you wonder what is coming in to replace "big business"

"Big Government". That's been their game plan all along.

[arctichomesteader]

On the bright side, though, I don't believe Alaska will sink as low as some lower 48 states have/will. States that grew economically because of the bubble are and will be far worse off. The biggest problem with Alaska is the economy depends on two basic things: tourism and industries based on extracting natural resources (mining, oil, fishing, etc.). Most of the state's economy centers around these two things. Tourism is hit hard because of the lower 48's problems, and I doubt it will come back until things are better in the lower 48. The other stuff, hit by low prices and environmentalists fighting the use of the resources so less incentive for corporations to be investing in the state. Oil will not stay down too long I believe and, if the politicians would quit the fighting and get the gas pipeline under way, it could turn things around. If the real extreme environmentalists from outside the state could be driven away, even better.

[Moose Whisperer]

Originally Posted by arctichomesteader

The other stuff, hit by low prices and environmentalists fighting the use of the resources so less incentive for corporations to be investing in the state. Oil will not stay down too long I believe and, if the politicians would quit the fighting and get the gas pipeline under way, it could turn things around. If the real extreme environmentalists from outside the state could be driven away, even better.

Oil production on the slope is declining at 5% per year. It's not a matter of price, but physics. At current rates of decline the Pipeline will reach 200,000 bbl/per day in about 10 years, at which point it becomes unfeasable to operate the pipeline from both an engineering and economic perspective. The only solution is bringing more supply on line, but the current administration has made it clear this will never happen - and it couldn't even happen in previous development friendly ones either.

The gas pipeline is dead because 150+ years of natural gas supply is now economically recoverable in the lower 48. Again, regardless of price, it will always be more economical to develop the gas down south than build a 2000+ mile pipeline through Canada to Chicago.

Driving away extreme environmentalism is wishful thinking. The lunacy is too deeply entrenched in the national psyche. The reality is there is nothing on the horizon that can alter the forces that are already in play. The Alaskan economy is like the Titanic. The iceberg has been struck. The ship is still afloat for now, in fact the band is still playing so things look okay from afar, but the outcome is inevitable.