(SitNews) Ketchikan, Alaska - For the first time, the Alaska Department of Labor has been able to produce estimates of federal workers and their impact on Alaska’s economy finding that federal civil service jobs in Alaska provide more that $1 billion annually in wages, or about 7.2 percent of the state's total wages.

Federal departments in Alaska aren't’t required to report their employees’ occupational data, which limits the state’s ability to look at the jobs and demographics of federal workers. However, combining several data sources allowed the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development to produce estimates for federal workers and their characteristics for the first time, according to Paul Martz, a Department of Labor economist in Juneau.

Every Alaska borough and census area has federal positions, but some rely more on the U.S. government than others. Not surprisingly, Anchorage had the largest number of federal jobs — 9,117 in 2012 — but the federal government has a bigger financial impact on many smaller areas and can often be a larger percentage of a rural area’s economy.

In Ketchikan, the federal footprint on the community amounts to over $19 million in federal wages. There are 257 federal workers employed in Ketchikan representing 3.5% of local jobs and 6.0% of local wages.

The federal wage footprint on Prince of Wales-Hyder, a close neighbor of Ketchikan, is over $6 million with 95 federal workers accounting for 4.9% of the area's local jobs and 8.7% of the area's wages.

Martz found that federal salaries tend to be high with a majority, 51 percent, of federal workers paid between $40,000 and $79,999 annually. The average of $71,775, is substantially higher than the 2012 statewide wage average of $55,272.

According to Martz, of the roughly 13,0481 federal civilian employees in Alaska in 2012, 62 percent were men and 38 percent were women. The largest share, 43 percent, worked in management, business, or administrative support positions. The next largest group was life, physical, and social scientists at 16 percent, followed by transportation workers at 9 percent.

On the Web:

Read the full article: Alaska Economic Trends - October 2013
http://www.labor.state.ak.us/trends/oct13.pdf

Source of News: 

Alaska Department of Labor & Workforce Development
www.labor.state.ak.us

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Ketchikan, Alaska

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