Commercial fishing jobs in Alaska are down for the fifth year in a row. That’s according to new economic data from the state Department of Labor for the year 2024.
Seafood harvesting jobs — which include commercial fishing but not processing jobs — dropped about 7.5% last year, about the same as the year before. That brings the industry’s harvesting jobs to their lowest count since records began in 2001.
The report’s author, Joshua Warren, says there are many reasons for the drop.
“There's increased cost, competition in international markets, drop in prices,” he said. “A lot of different things can cause someone to choose to fish or not to fish.”
Warren says climate change is another major factor, bringing unpredictable runs and fishery closures for different species and regions of the state.
The report doesn’t reflect this year’s tariffs, but it does note that the U.S. has been losing ground in global seafood markets for years.
Warren says the numbers fit a decade-long trend: seafood harvesting jobs have fallen by more than a third since 2014. The pandemic caused the biggest losses, but unlike most Alaska industries, the seafood sector hasn’t bounced back.
He says crab was the only bright spot that seems to have rebounded from recent closures, while all other species are still seeing declines.
And while he’s not optimistic that jobs will rebound to previous levels, he says that overall, Alaska’s fishing industry is “pretty resilient.”
“I don't think I'm terribly worried there won't be fishing in the future,” he said. “We're just seeing a lot of negative factors right at the moment.”
The very end of 2024 did see modest job growth, but Warren says it’s too soon to tell if that trend continued into this year.
