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Trends looks at 10-year job projections
October issue of Alaska Economic Trends has 2022 to 2032 numbers; oil and gas had one of worst job losses; is having slow recovery
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development's Research and Analysis Section is responsible for creating 10-year industry and occupational projections for the state every year, and the 2022-2032 projections have been published in the October issue of the department's Alaska Economic Trends.
Finalized numbers for 2023 only became available as the 10-year projections were being published, so 2022 was used as the base year "because it's important to begin with a solid set of numbers that won't be revised further rather than use newer preliminary data." The study includes 2019 numbers to provide context because of the impact of COVID which hit in 2020.
Total employment in the state -- public and private -- was 329,092 in 2019, dropping to 303,046 in 2022 and projected to be 341,442 in 2032, up 22,097 from 2022, a 6.9% gain.
Paul Martz, author of the "10-year industry projections" in the October issue of Trends, begins by noting: "By the end of 2022, Alaska had recovered 62.6 percent of the jobs lost during the pandemic. That put us about 3 percent below our total pre-COVID job count. From that base year, we project total employment will grow 6.9 percent through 2032."
Oil and gas numbers Martz said recovery has varied across industries, with accommodations and oil and gas examples of hard-hit industries. But while the accommodation industry has had a strong recovery, oil and gas has not. Oil and gas lost 20% of its jobs in 2020 followed by another 18% in 2021, and only began "a meager recovery" of 5% in 2022, Martz said.
Looking at the oil and gas numbers from a table of industry projections in the story, the industry had 10,248 jobs in 2019, prior to COVID, dropping to 8,179 in 2020 and 6,690 in 2021 before gradually turning up -- what the chart calls 2022 estimated jobs of 7,043 for the industry.
The 2022-2032 projected growth is 2,674 jobs, up to 9,718, a 38% gain over the 10-year period.
The chart also breaks out oil and gas extraction jobs -- defined as oil and gas exploration and oilfield services -- from the oil and gas total, with 3,528 in 2019, falling to 3,208 in 2020 and 2,865 in 2021, but continuing to fall, to 2,783, in 2022. By 2032, that category is projected to grow to 3,575, an increase of 792, an increase of 28.5%.
Discussion on oil and gas Martz said the oil and gas industry has struggled in recent years after "back-to-back economic shocks," with the pandemic coming on the tail of the state recession which followed "the historic oil price collapse in 2015."
Between 2015 and 2021, he said, oil and gas lost 8,431 jobs, 56% of its total, adding back just 354 jobs in 2022 and an additional 518 in 2023.
Alaska is in about the same shape as other states with more than 1,000 oil and gas jobs -- only Utah among those states having bounced back from COVID loses by 2022.
"The fact that the industry differs widely in all of these states but most have been slow to recover suggests pandemic-related structural problems are lingering," Martz said.
He said employment is expected to spike as Pikka and Willow are developed but after that the shape of the industry's growth in the state "is hard to predict, but we project the industry will reach 9,718 total jobs in 2023, which would be 5 percent below its 2019 peak but 38 percent higher than in 2022."
Occupational outliers In a separate article, "10-year occupational projections," Martz identifiers some outliers in the oil and gas industry which are projected to show the most recovery from the pandemic.
By occupation, these are:
*Derrick operators, oil and gas: down 7% from 2019 to 2032, but up 43% from 2022 to 2032.
*Rotary drill operators, oil and gas: down 4% from 2019 to 2031, but up 39% from 2022 to 2032.
*Roustabouts, oil and gas: down 4% from 2019 to 2031, but up 38% from 2022-2032.
*Service unit operators, oil and gas: down 3% from 2019-2032, but up 34% from 2022-2032.
*Petroleum Engineers: 0% change from 2019 to 2032, but up 27% from 2022 to 2032.
These occupations "show massive projected growth from 2022 to 2032 because they start at such a low point." Starting with pre-pandemic numbers, he said, "the projected growth will bring total employment to just below the full recovery of 2019's job count by 2032."
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