At first glance, animal care employment in Alaska looks a lot like it does in the rest of the country. With a similar mix of veterinarians, groomers, and pet store workers, it's a comparably small slice of Alaska's total job count. But Alaska often differs in what its animals need and what it takes to reach them.
Alaska's population is in constant flux. Each year, thousands of Alaskans are born, thousands die, tens of thousands move to and from the state, and everyone who lives here ages. The most recent official estimates put Alaska's population at 735,601 in July 2014. That's a loss of just 61 people from July 2013, but it's notable because it was the first time in more than 25 years that Alaska's population declined.
More than 60 percent of Alaskans were born outside the state - that's more than all other states except retiree-heavy Florida, Arizona, and Nevada. While many Alaskans were born elsewhere in the country, an increasing number were born outside the United States.
The City and Borough of Juneau covers 3,255 square miles, making it the largest state capital and the second-largest city in the nation by area, after Sitka. Most of that area is uninhabited, however, and Juneau's entire population of about 33,000 is distributed along a narrow sliver of coastal land between its namesake ice field and the waters of the Inside Passage.
Alaska is not expected to gain jobs in 2015, as the state faces downward pressure from low oil prices and tightened government budgets. Net job growth is expected to be flat after an estimated 0.3 percent gain in 2014
By most measures, Anchorage's economy is young. Unlike most U.S. cities, from its beginning, automobiles traveled its roads, electricity lighted its homes, and phones were commonplace. There's also a number of Anchorage residents alive today who have witnessed most of the city's economic story.
Alaska's rich seafood resources are an important part of the state's economy and a source of jobs and income for thousands of people. At the beginning of a long economic chain that ends with salmon or halibut on someone's dinner table are the people who harvest the seafood from the state's oceans and rivers.
Alaska is projected to gain 36,113 jobs between 2012 and 2022 for a growth rate of 10.8 percent. The health care and social assistance sector will grow the most at a projected 25 percent, followed closely by mining - minus oil and gas - at 24.8 percent. Two other notable categories - oil and gas extraction and professional and business services - are likely to grow at a faster rate than the economy overall. On the other end of the spectrum, we expect construction and information to grow slower than overall employment.
Alaska has about 110,000 people in their twenties today, 25,000 more than it had in 2000. That's more twentysomethings than the state has had since the early 1980s, when Alaska was awash in young workers attracted first by pipeline construcion and then the boom years fueled by new oil revenue.
When entrepreneur E.T. Barnette was unceremoniously dumped on the banks of the Chena River in late summer over a century ago, it would have been impossible to foresee that the second-largest city in Alaska would form where he landed after a forced detour. Fueled by gold rush fever and en route to Tanacross to establish a trading post, Barnette was thwarted by river water too low to navigate and the shadow of fall hanging over his journey. After pushing the steamboat captain as far as he could, Barnette found himself hundreds of miles from his destination with a long winter ahead in the Tanana Valley.