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Global Credit Union, formerly Alaska USA, lays off 78 Alaska employees

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Global Credit Union, formerly Alaska USA, lays off 78 Alaska employees


Alaska’s largest credit union laid off 185 employees this week at its operations in five states, including 78 in Alaska, an official with the company said.

Global Credit Union, formerly Alaska USA Federal Credit Union, is responding to a downturn in lending activity following the rapid rise in interest rates that have slowed borrowing nationally, said Tim Woolston, a spokesman.

“These are hard conversations to have, but it’s a necessary step to right-size the operations based on the volumes of activity in certain areas of lending,” he said.

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“Anybody in our business nationally is having to look at the same sort of thing because we’re in such a different place in terms of lending,” he said.

Following a pandemic-related rise in borrowing that caused a staff buildup, the company has now experienced a drop in lending activity for mortgages, real estate and consumer loans, such as for automobiles, in response to the higher interest rates, he said.

Global Credit Union had granted about 16,000 loans this year through the end of March, it reported to federal regulators. That’s down from 27,000 last year.

Most of the cuts at the credit union have come in its lending operations, from an overall workforce of 2,240 people spread across Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho and Washington, he said. Smaller staff reductions will occur in the project management and technology departments.

[‘Richcession’? ‘Rolling recession’? Or no recession at all?]

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Proportionally fewer cuts are happening in Alaska than in the Lower 48, he said. Half the company’s workforce is located in Alaska, and those operations are seeing about a 7% reduction in staff.

The layoffs were effective this week but the employees are still on the payroll under a 30-day severance package, he said.

The credit union will work to find many of them new jobs within the company, Woolston said. They will get preferential treatment for more than 100 open positions, many of them at call centers, that are no longer being publicly advertised so they can be filled internally, he said. He said many of the open positions are in Alaska, and the credit union’s layoff numbers are expected to shrink significantly, he said.

“That’s what organizations have to do,” he said. “You have to shift people around to meet the demands as the demands of the business change.”

Services to customers will continue the same as before, including the operation of staffed call centers in Alaska and Arizona that are open all week, around the clock, he said.

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The federal government has pushed interest rates sharply higher over the last year to tamp down inflation. The Federal Reserve recently took a pause on raising rates, but signaled more increases are likely.

The higher rates, though they remain historically low, have pushed up borrowing costs, forcing some people to put off big purchases.

The higher rates this year contributed to the collapse of major banks, such as California-based Silicon Valley Bank. The higher rates devalued long-term bonds held by that bank and others, hurting their ability to raise cash when investors pulled deposits.

Alaska regulators have said banks and credit unions operating in Alaska, including Global Credit, are typically much smaller than the banks that failed. They operate differently and are on solid ground, they said.

[Rental prices are finally starting to drop from pandemic highs]

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The troubles that rocked the much-larger banks are not a problem at Global Credit, and are not a contributor to the layoffs, Woolston said.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “In terms of the balance sheet and the financial strength of the organization, it’s as strong as it’s ever been.”

Even after the layoffs, the credit union still employs more people than before the pandemic began in 2020, he said.

During the pandemic, the lender beefed up its staff to process increased lending, he said. At the time, American incomes were boosted by government stimulus checks and interest rates were extremely low, factors supporting borrowing.

Global Credit Union has 27 branches in Alaska, dozens of others in the Lower 48, and three at U.S. military installations in Italy. It holds more than $12 billion in assets and has 760,000 members.

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Alaska USA, founded in the state in 1948, merged with Global Credit Union last year. Its headquarters are in Anchorage but it took the smaller company’s name this year, as it looks to expand its footprint in Alaska and outside the state.

Woolston said the layoffs are not a result of the corporate merger.

“These decisions have zero to do with any of that,” he said.





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Arctic hotspots study reveals areas of climate stress in Northern Alaska and Siberia

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Arctic hotspots study reveals areas of climate stress in Northern Alaska and Siberia


Map of areas that experienced ecosystem climate stress in the Arctic-boreal region between 1997-2020 as detected by multiple variables including satellite data and long-term temperature records. Watts et al., 2025, Geophysical Research Letters. Credit: Christina Shintani / Woodwell Climate Research Center

Ecological warning lights have blinked on across the Arctic over the last 40 years, according to new research, and many of the fastest-changing areas are clustered in Siberia, the Canadian Northwest Territories, and Alaska.

An analysis of the rapidly warming Arctic-boreal region, published in Geophysical Research Letters, provides a zoomed-in picture of ecosystems experiencing some of the fastest and most extreme climate changes on Earth.

Many of the most climate-stressed areas feature permafrost, or ground that stays frozen year-round, and has experienced both severe warming and drying in recent decades.

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To identify these “hotspots,” a team of researchers from Woodwell Climate Research Center, the University of Oslo, the University of Montana, the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri), and the University of Lleida used more than 30 years of geospatial data and long-term temperature records to assess indicators of ecosystem vulnerability in three categories: temperature, moisture, and vegetation.

Building on assessments like the NOAA Arctic Report Card, the research team went beyond evaluating isolated metrics of change and looked at multiple variables at once to create a more complete, integrated picture of climate and ecosystem changes in the region.

“Climate warming has put a great deal of stress on ecosystems in the high latitudes, but the stress looks very different from place to place and we wanted to quantify those differences,” said Dr. Jennifer Watts, Arctic program director at Woodwell Climate and lead author of the study.

“Detecting hotspots at the local and regional level helps us not only to build a more precise picture of how Arctic warming is affecting ecosystems, but to identify places where we really need to focus future monitoring efforts and management resources.”

The team used spatial statistics to detect “neighborhoods,” or regions of particularly high levels of change during the past decade.

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“This study is exactly why we have developed these kinds of spatial statistic tools in our technology. We are so proud to be working closely with Woodwell Climate on identifying and publishing these kinds of vulnerability hotspots that require effective and immediate climate adaptation action and long-term policy,” said Dr. Dawn Wright, chief scientist at Esri. “This is essentially what we mean by the ‘Science of Where.’”

The findings paint a complex and concerning picture.

The most substantial land warming between 1997–2020 occurred in the far eastern Siberian tundra and throughout central Siberia. Approximately 99% of the Eurasian tundra region experienced significant warming, compared to 72% of Eurasian boreal forests.

While some hotspots in Siberia and the Northwest Territories of Canada grew drier, the researchers detected increased surface water and flooding in parts of North America, including Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and central Canada. These increases in water on the landscape over time are likely a sign of thawing permafrost.

  • Arctic hotspots study reveals areas of climate stress in Northern Alaska, Siberia
    Warming severity “hotspots” in Arctic-boreal region between 1997-2020 were detected by analyzing multiple variables including satellite imagery and long-term temperature records. Watts et al., 2025, Geophysical Research Letters. Credit: Christina Shintani / Woodwell Climate Research Center
  • Arctic hotspots study reveals areas of climate stress in Northern Alaska, Siberia
    Map of areas of severe to extremely severe drying in the Arctic-boreal region. Drying severity was determined by analyzing multiple variables from the satellite record. Watts et al., 2025, Geophysical Research Letters. Credit: Christina Shintani / Woodwell Climate Research Center
  • Arctic hotspots study reveals areas of climate stress in Northern Alaska, Siberia
    Map of areas that experienced vegetation climate stress in the Arctic-boreal region between 1997-2020 as detected by multiple variables from the satellite record. Watts et al., 2025, Geophysical Research Letters. Credit: Christina Shintani / Woodwell Climate Research Center

Among the 20 most vulnerable places the researchers identified, all contained permafrost.

“The Arctic and boreal regions are made up of diverse ecosystems, and this study reveals some of the complex ways they are responding to climate warming,” said Dr. Sue Natali, lead of the Permafrost Pathways project at Woodwell Climate and co-author of the study.

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“However, permafrost was a common denominator—the most climate-stressed regions all contained permafrost, which is vulnerable to thaw as temperatures rise. That’s a really concerning signal.”

For land managers and other decisionmakers, local and regional hotspot mapping like this can serve as a more useful monitoring tool than region-wide averages. Take, for instance, the example of COVID-19 tracking data: maps of county-by-county wastewater data tend to be more helpful tools to guide decision making than national averages, since rates of disease prevalence and transmission can vary widely among communities at a given moment in time.

So, too, with climate trends: local data and trend detection can support management and adaptation approaches that account for unique and shifting conditions on the ground.

The significant changes the team detected in the Siberian boreal forest region should serve as a wakeup call, said Watts.

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“These forested regions, which have been helping take up and store carbon dioxide, are now showing major climate stresses and increasing risk of fire. We need to work as a global community to protect these important and vulnerable boreal ecosystems, while also reining in fossil fuel emissions.”

More information:
Regional Hotspots of Change in Northern High Latitudes Informed by Observations From Space, Geophysical Research Letters (2025). DOI: 10.1029/2023GL108081

Provided by
Woodwell Climate Research Center

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Citation:
Arctic hotspots study reveals areas of climate stress in Northern Alaska and Siberia (2025, January 16)
retrieved 16 January 2025
from https://phys.org/news/2025-01-arctic-hotspots-reveals-areas-climate.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

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Alaska Airlines Flight Attendant Gets Fired For Twerking On The Job

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Alaska Airlines Flight Attendant Gets Fired For Twerking On The Job


A flight attendant’s viral TikTok video ended up costing her job. Nelle Diala, who was working as a flight attendant with Alaska Airlines for over six months was reportedly fired from her job after recording a twerking video while at work, the New York Post reported. After losing her job for “violating” the airline’s “social media policy”, Diala set up a GoFundMe page for financial support. The twerking and dancing video, posted by Diala on her personal social media account, went viral on TikTok and Instagram. The video was captioned, “ghetto bih till i D-I-E, don’t let the uniform fool you.”

After being fired, Diala reposted the twerking video with the new caption: “Can’t even be yourself anymore, without the world being so sensitive. What’s wrong with a little twerk before work, people act like they never did that before.” She added the hashtag #discriminationisreal.

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According to Diala’s GoFundMe page, she posted the “lighthearted video” during a layover. The video was shot in an empty aircraft. She wrote, “It was a harmless clip that was recorded at 6 am while waiting 2 hours for pilots. I was also celebrating the end of probation.”

“The video went viral overnight, but instead of love and support, it brought unexpected scrutiny. Although it was a poor decision on my behalf I didn’t think it would cost me my dream job,” she added.

Also Read: To Wi-Fi Or Not To Wi-Fi On A Plane? Pros And Cons Of Using Internet At 30,000 Feet

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Talking about being “wrongfully fired”, she said, “My employer accused me of violating their social media policy. I explained that the video wasn’t intended to harm anyone or the company, but they didn’t want to listen. Without warning, they terminated me. No discussion, no chance to defend myself-and no chance for a thorough and proper investigation.”

The seemingly “harmless clip” has led Diala to lose her “dream job”. She shared, “Losing my job was devastating. I’ve always been careful about what I share online, and I never thought this video, which didn’t even mention the airline by name, would cost me my career. Now, I am trying to figure out how to move forward.”






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Federal funds will help DOT study wildlife crashes on Glenn Highway

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Federal funds will help DOT study wildlife crashes on Glenn Highway


New federal funds will help Alaska’s Department of Transportation develop a plan to reduce vehicle collisions with wildlife on one of the state’s busiest highways.

The U.S. Transportation Department gave the state a $626,659 grant in December to conduct a wildlife-vehicle collision study along the Glenn Highway corridor stretching between Anchorage’s Airport Heights neighborhood to the Glenn-Parks Highway interchange.

Over 30,000 residents drive the highway each way daily.

Mark Eisenman, the Anchorage area planner for the department, hopes the study will help generate new ideas to reduce wildlife crashes on the Glenn Highway.

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“That’s one of the things we’re hoping to get out of this is to also have the study look at what’s been done, not just nationwide, but maybe worldwide,” Eisenman said. “Maybe where the best spot for a wildlife crossing would be, or is a wildlife crossing even the right mitigation strategy for these crashes?”

Eisenman said the most common wildlife collisions are with moose. There were nine fatal moose-vehicle crashes on the highway between 2018 and 2023. DOT estimates Alaska experiences about 765 animal-vehicle collisions annually.

In the late 1980s, DOT lengthened and raised a downtown Anchorage bridge to allow moose and wildlife to pass underneath, instead of on the roadway. But Eisenman said it wasn’t built tall enough for the moose to comfortably pass through, so many avoid it.

DOT also installed fencing along high-risk areas of the highway in an effort to prevent moose from traveling onto the highway.

Moose typically die in collisions, he said, and can also cause significant damage to vehicles. There are several signs along the Glenn Highway that tally fatal moose collisions, and he said they’re the primary signal to drivers to watch for wildlife.

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“The big thing is, the Glenn Highway is 65 (miles per hour) for most of that stretch, and reaction time to stop when you’re going that fast for an animal jumping onto the road is almost impossible to avoid,” he said.

The city estimates 1,600 moose live in the Anchorage Bowl.



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