Alaska Employment: 328,800 Jobs Keeps April Unemployment Steady at 4.6 Percent

An increase of nearly 9,000 jobs compared to a year before—for a second month in a row—kept the state’s unemployment rate from rising. The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development puts the seasonally adjusted figure for April at 4.6 percent, the same as a month before.

2.8 Percent Job Growth

The statewide rate in April compares to the national rate of 3.9 percent, which was a slight increase from March. Rates have more than recovered from levels prior to the COVID-19 pandemic; unemployment rates were typically higher than 6 percent prior to the oil price crash of 2014.

The unadjusted unemployment rate in the Anchorage area fell to 4.1 percent in April, down from a revised figure of 4.2 in March. The region combining Anchorage and Matanuska-Susitna Borough equaled the unemployment rate for Southeast, which saw a bigger month-to-month drop. The Southwest region contains both the lowest rate in the state, with 2.5 percent in the Aleutians East Borough, and the highest, with 14.5 percent in the Kusilvak Census Area of the Yukon Delta.