Economists: Alaska still top fishing state

December 10, 2008

ANCHORAGE – Alaska continues to hold its own as the nation’s No. 1 fishing state, with salmon fisheries providing the most jobs. However, employment in the crab fishery has dropped substantially in part because that fishery was privatized, state economists say.

A report in the November issue of Alaska Economic Trends, published by the state Department of Labor, notes that in 2007 the overall harvest of Alaska seafood was third highest in value since statehood and the sixth largest in volume.

Despite depressed salmon markets in 1998 and from 2000 to 2003, Alaska fisheries have recovered in recent years. 2006 and 2007 brought record harvest values: $1.3 billion and $1.5 billion, said state labor economists Brigitta Windisch-Cole and Josh Warren.

The value of Alaska’s 2007 harvest was 3.6 times the value of Massachusetts’ harvest, the nation’s No. 2 fishing state, they said.

For 2007, the latest year all complete figures are available, the average monthly fish harvesting job count was 7,260. At the peak of summer, the monthly job count rose to 20,137.

“Add the thousands of jobs the fisheries created in seafood processing, support service industries and government management, and the economic importance of fisheries to Alaska becomes even more clear,” the economists said.

While employment in the salmon, halibut and sablefish fisheries were down slightly the drop in jobs was most dramatic in the crab fleet, which generated only 418 jobs in 2007, a 40 percent decline from 692 jobs in 2002.

Economists said one reason for the decline is the crab rationalization program implemented in 2005 in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, home of the state’s largest crab fishery in terms of volume.

Between 2003 and 2007, crab employment in those areas fell by 34 percent and peak month employment fell from 1,694 in 2003 to 584 in 2007, a 65 percent drop, the economists said.

As intended, the crab rationalization program reduced fleet size, and distributed individual share quotas to area fishermen based on their harvest history adjusted to the total annual harvest quota.

Salmon fisheries have traditionally provided the most jobs of all of the state’s fisheries.

In 2007, salmon employment made a strong recovery in volume and value from its low point in 2002. The 2007 overall salmon harvest of nearly 950 million pounds was Alaska’s third-largest salmon harvest in 27 years and worth nearly $417 million.

That was the highest value in eight years and worth more than six times the value of the 2002 harvest.

Written by fandw08 · Filed Under Fishing