1,110 FEWER: Health care and government sectors could increase.
The size of Anchorage's work force will probably shrink this year but not by as much as it did last year, according to a state economic forecast.
The Alaska Department of Labor is predicting that the city's mild recession will linger, with private employment declining in all industries except for health care in 2010.
The total loss of jobs is estimated at 1,110 -- less than 1 percent of Anchorage's roughly 150,000 jobs. City employers cut 1,500 positions last year, according to preliminary data.
Last year was the first time the Anchorage economy had lost jobs since the late 1980s, as effects of the sharp Lower 48 recession slowed the local tourism, air cargo, real estate, retail and construction industries.
The new labor department forecast predicts only two local job sectors will grow this year: health care and government. The department expects the number of city government jobs will decline this year as Mayor Dan Sullivan and the city Assembly tighten spending. But jobs in state and federal government agencies will increase.
Neal Fried, a state labor economist involved in the new forecast, said his crystal ball on the Anchorage economy got murkier last year, complicating the forecast. How would the national recession play out locally? How would lower prices and higher taxes affect investment in Alaska's most valuable industry, oil and gas?
Fried predicted Anchorage will lose 200 oil and gas jobs this year, mostly in oil-field services, but he said that number is questionable due to uncertainty over future oil industry decisions. "I wish I had a clear picture," he said.
He said some of the most severe job losses in Anchorage this year probably will happen in tourism. Due to cruise-ship industry cutbacks this summer, fewer visitors will stay overnight in Anchorage, hurting sales for some tour operators, hotels and restaurants.
MILD RECESSION
Last year's overall job losses arrested a 20-year pattern of continuous job growth in the state's largest city.
But one city booster argues that the losses last year were minimal, and he sees some signs of possible recovery this year.
Last year's estimated 1 percent job decline came after a year of peak employment in the city, said Bill Popp, who heads the Anchorage Economic Development Corp., a public-private nonprofit that promotes the city as a place to do business. The nonprofit will unveil its own city job forecast at the end of the month.
"Yes, we're in a bit of a minor recession right now in Anchorage, but it's very, very mild," Popp said.
One sign for optimism, he said, is that one of the city's large private industries, international air cargo, is showing signs of growth this year after being pummeled by the global recession.
Popp also is hopeful that the upward trend in oil prices could spur oil companies to consider new North Slope projects.
Pat Burden, an Anchorage economist for Northern Economics, a local research firm, said he thinks the Alaska economy will start improving this spring or summer.
"We lagged the national recession going in, and we'll lag it going out," said Burden, who will publish a forecast on the statewide economy this week.
MORE LIKE LOWER 48?
As the Anchorage economy has grown in recent years, it has also become more like that in Lower 48 cities, Fried said.
That's mainly because of a boom in service sector employment -- big retail chains like Target moved in, air cargo grew by leaps and bounds, and a couple of hospitals launched major expansions, to name a few examples.
But that service sector growth has made Anchorage more similar to cities in the Lower 48 and it seems to have made the city more susceptible to the national economic downturn, Fried said.
Major retailers have not divulged their local sales for 2009, but retail employment declined by an estimated 300 jobs last year even though some large new stores opened in town, including a Target in South Anchorage and a Kohl's department store at the Tikahtnu Commons in East Anchorage.
The labor department predicts that retail jobs will decline by another 200 again this year.
Statistics are showing that national consumer confidence is already on the upswing, Fried said.
"The question is, will this affect us?" he said. "I don't know."
Find Elizabeth Bluemink online at adn.com/contact/ebluemink or call 257-4317.
