Expanded oil industry activity in Alaska expected to help create statewide job growth
- Alaska Beacon
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
State’s 2026 job forecast predicts a boost in oil and gas jobs and continued growth in health care and construction, but it notes some trouble signs, including more expected federal job losses
By Yereth Rosen
Alaska Beacon
Alaska is expected to have moderate statewide job growth this year, led by continued expansion in the oil and gas industry and the health care sector, according to a new state forecast.
The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development’s 2026 jobs forecast predicts an additional 3,000 jobs, amounting to 0.9% growth in employment for the coming year. That is slightly lower than last year’s growth of 1.2%, according to the forecast.
“Alaska’s economic drivers are mostly strong going into 2026,” said the statewide forecast, written by state labor economist Karinne Wiebold and published in Alaska Economic Trends, the department’s monthly research magazine.
By percentage, the oil and gas sector is expected to be the state leader in job growth; the 1,000 new jobs expected this year would amount to an 11.1% increase over 2025 total.
Much of the expected growth is from Santos’ Pikka oil field, where construction is now completed and production is set to start this year. Additionally, there is a general upswing in industry activity, the forecast said.
Growth in the oil and gas industry is expected to bring job totals in that sector to an average of 10,000 for the year – still below the peak of 14,800 achieved in 2014 but about back to the level in 2019, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic. Oil and gas employment fell to its lowest point in the pandemic year of 2021, at 6,700.
Lower oil prices are not expected to have much effect on job numbers, Wiebold said by email. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, oil prices have fluctuated widely, even as production in Alaska has been fairly stable, she said
An unknown factor that could dampen job growth, she said, has been created by ongoingConocoPhillips layoffs. The layoffs are global and not targeted at the company’s Alaska operations specifically, so effects on the North Slope and elsewhere remain unclear.
Health care, construction still growing, but some sectors still losing jobs
The health care sector is expected to add the biggest number of jobs in 2026. The anticipated 1,100 new jobs amount to a 2.5% increase from 2025, according to the forecast. Health care has been a perennial employment growth leader, in part because of needs created by the aging of Alaska’s population, Wiebold said.
The construction sector is still expected to gain jobs, but not at the booming pace of the past two years. For four of the past five years, Alaska has received over $2 billion in federal capital funds, among the highest annual totals ever, the forecast ports out.
One of the major federally funded projects that is poised to start this year is the Port of Nome expansion. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in August awarded a $399.4 million contract for the first phase of the project, a 1,200-foot causeway extension with about 600 feet of new dock space. Further causeway and dock expansion, along with harbor deepening and other work, is planned in coming years.
Another big federally funded construction project, the new bridge and road reconfiguration at the Pretty Rocks landslide area at the midway point of the 92-mile Denali National Park road, is nearing completion, the forecast points out.
The transportation, warehousing and utilities sector, which is often related to construction activity, is expected to gain jobs, as well.
But some Alaska industries have yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels and are expected to continue to shed jobs this year.
One of those is seafood processing, which accounts for most of Alaska’s manufacturing sector. The seafood industry has been in a long-term decline, but the coming year’s losses are expected to be modest compared to the past few years. A bright spot is the 2025 salmon harvest, which was much improved from the 2024 harvest.
A trouble spot is federal employment outside of the U.S. Department of Defense.
The state lost 300 non-military federal jobs last year, and the forecast predicts that another 400 will be lost in 2026.
Southeast Alaska, where a smaller percentage of the federal jobs are military, “is likely a bit more vulnerable to federal job cuts than other parts of the state,” Wiebold said.
Overall, Southeast Alaska is expected to lag behind other parts of the state in employment. The region is expected to actually lose about 100 jobs this year, amounting to a 0.3% decrease, according to a regional analysis that accompanied the statewide analysis.
Elsewhere, state analysts expect increases. Expected job growth in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough is 1.3% and 0.8% in both Anchorage and Fairbanks, according to regional projections.
One statewide factor that poses uncertainty is the failure by Congress so far to continue subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, the forecast said. If there is no action to change that situation, as many as 25,000 Alaskans will face sharply increasing health insurance costs, the forecast said. “Beyond dampening demand for health care, this could significantly reduce households’ ability to spend on other needs, with spillover effects across sectors,” the forecast said.
• Yereth Rosen came to Alaska in 1987 to work for the Anchorage Times. She has been reporting on Alaska news ever since, covering stories ranging from oil spills to sled-dog races. She has reported for Reuters, for the Alaska Dispatch News, for Arctic Today and for other organizations. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
