he lack of available, skilled workers is a common topic of conversation among Alaska’s business and community leaders. Many see the COVID-19 pandemic as a significant contributor to the lack of able-bodied, willing-to-work persons: the workforce directly suffered from the virus, they’ve been tempted away from working by heightened unemployment benefits, or they’ve been motivated by the global pandemic to rethink their skills and their careers. What’s obvious, it seems, is that COVID-19 is the reason the labor force is shrinking—if there were seven dwarves working before the pandemic, we now only have four or five picking up their pickaxes.

In this case, though, the virus isn’t to blame. In an excellent economic forecast for the Society for Marketing Professional Services in February, state economist Neil Fried spoke on Alaska’s falling labor force participation, which is the percentage of the working age population (ages 15 to 64) who are either working or actively looking for work. While the rate did abnormally dip during the pandemic, it was already on a downward trend for decades—and that trend is national, not unique to Alaska. In Alaska Trends this month, we show twenty years of the labor force participation rate and the employment to population ratio, a statistic that measures the currently employed civilian labor force against the total working-age population of a region, which is also on a decades-long decline.

Why? According to Fried, no one really knows, though theories abound. Examine the data, ask around, and feel free to let us know your take on why people are opting out of the workforce.