New employment stats show Alaska trending above average nationwide

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – New data from the U.S. Department of Labor shows Alaska’s job numbers are generally trending higher than the national average in many categories.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report Wednesday that the job openings rate in Alaska for June 2023 was 7.9%, compared to a national rate of 5.8%. The job openings rate is the number of new job openings compared to actual employment numbers.

The rate did drop off from a year ago, when Alaska was sitting at a job openings rate of 8.6% — although it was still higher than the nationwide rate of 6.7%.

The state also is trending down in terms of job separations over a month-to-month time period; in June 2023, Alaska saw 15,000 separations, down from 17,000 in May. Over the same period, Alaska went down in new hires, from 21,000 to 18,000, but separations had numbered more than hires over the previous 12 months ending in June (20,000 average hires per month to 21,000 average separations).

Of the job separations in June of this year, 10,000 of those were residents quitting, while the other 5,000 were layoffs and discharges. It was part of a broader trend showing that job quits are going down while layoffs are staying relatively the same.

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