September Unemployment Down to 6.3%

Alaska’s unemployment rate went down in September compared to the previous month.

The state Department of Labor & Workforce Development puts the seasonally adjusted rate at 6.3 percent in September, a slight decrease from August and approximately the same level of unemployment Alaska saw from 2015 through 2017.

The rate in Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough was a combined 5.0 percent, down from 6.6 percent a year before. Unemployment was slightly lower in the Interior and Southeast but higher in the Kenai Peninsula, Prince William Sound, Southwest Alaska, and the Northern regions.

The total number of jobs grew by 3.8 percent, year over year. September’s job count was 11,600 more than the same month in 2020 but 25,500 shy of the level from September 2019. The leisure and hospitality sector had the biggest recovery, but the oil and gas sector is 3,100 jobs down from where it was at this time in 2019.