Health care sector drives job growth in Anchorage

The December issue of the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation’s “Anchorage Employment Report” shows job growth in Anchorage’s health care sector, despite Alaska’s continued recession.

Overall, the report finds a .7 percent YTD decrease in jobs in Anchorage. Anchorage’s total employment shrank to 149,900 jobs in November, down from October and lower than overall job counts from the past four years.

 

 

Compared to 2017, government, mining & logging, and professional and business services saw some of the steepest job decreases for the month of November. However, jobs in the health care sector show the biggest uptick.

In November, Anchorage added 600 new health care related jobs compared to the previous year. The industry has grown every year since 2014, despite overall job losses in Anchorage.

 

 

In Anchorage, the top job openings in September were for retail salespersons, followed by registered nurses and social and human service assistants. The top employer for new job openings during this time was Providence Health & Services.

This trend follows an October report, which predicted that the health care industry would drive the state’s job growth through 2026. According to that report, which was produced by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Alaska can expect to see an overall job growth of 5.1 percent between 2016 and 2026 – an addition of approximately 17,000 jobs to the state. Of that growth, 59.6 percent is expected to come from the health care industry.