ad news first: the number of reporters and journalists employed in Alaska is expected to shrink by 19 percent by 2032. Admittedly, this news hits more closely for the editorial team here at Alaska Business than for most readers, who can find more uplifting statistics in the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development’s ten-year occupational forecast.

For instance, the report anticipates a 38 percent surge in oil and gas employment to 9,718 jobs by 2032, just 5 percent shy of the industry’s peak in 2019. Each year, the state will see approximately 2,210 new jobs due to growth, plus 37,000 annual openings from the regular churn of workers leaving positions.

The department’s Research and Analysis Section creates the ten-year projection every other year based on a quarterly census of employment and wages (in this case, 2022 was the most recent year with solid data). Estimates do not include self-employed workers, such as most fishermen, nor agricultural or private household workers. The projections involve a mixture of historical trends and current events as shaped by population data.

In December, the department looked beyond the 2032 horizon of occupations to the here-before-you-know-it year of 2050 for a long-term population projection in Alaska Economic Trends. For the first time, it indicates a decrease in the total number of Alaskans, from 737,000 in 2023 to 723,000 by mid-century. More significantly, the age composition will shift, with a much smaller number of children.

This month’s article “Alaska’s Economic Outlook: Forecasting 2025” by Terri Marshall looks forward twelve months. To help ring in the new year, this edition of Alaska Trends gazes into the deeper mists of time to illustrate the occupational projections for years to come.