For the second year in a row, Providence Health & Services in 2008 topped the list as Alaska's only private-sector employer with more than 4,000 employees. They're likely to remain at the top of the list and alone in the 4,000-plus category for many years to come. Wal-Mart/Sam's Club joined Carrs/Safeway as an Alaska employer with a work force larger than 3,000. In fact, Wal-Mart snuck by Carrs/Safeway to become Alaska's second-largest employer in 2008. Wal-Mart got there by expanding existing stores into supercenters - in Fairbanks, Mat-Su and Anchorage - rather than by opening new stores.

Historically, when national recessions have driven the U.S. unemployment rate above 7 percent, Alaska's population gains from migration have also spiked. The U.S. rate has been above 7 percent since last December and reached 9.4 percent in May. For at least the next year any improvement in the nation's jobless picture is unlikely. Despite the national recession, Alaska has fared relatively well so far. Through April, Alaska and North Dakota were the only two states still showing over-the-year job growth. Given this and other circumstances, it's hard to imagine that Alaska won't become a bigger draw for folks looking for job opportunities.

A gas line from Prudhoe Bay to the contiguous lower 48 is still on [the president's] energy list. He has submitted an energy reorganization plan which creates a federal inspector to supervise the enforcement of permit regulations during the construction of the 4,748-mile-long gas line. The plan also calls for a seven member policy board to monitor construction." Alaska Economic Trends, May 1979 The topic of constructing and operating a transportation system to move North Slope natural gas to the Lower 48 is obviously not a new one. The president referred to above was Jimmy Carter, and a lot has changed since then.

Teenagers and young adults face many rites of passage: they get their driver's license, they register to vote, and they show up for work at their first part-time or summer job. Though that first job may put only a few dollars in their pockets, the experience and skills they learn can prepare them for successful long-term careers.

Housing experts across the nation are comparing current housing woes and foreclosure rates to those of the Great Depression. But you don't have to be an octogenarian to remember such hard times for the Alaska housing market. The recent spate of foreclosures in the national headlines may remind a few sourdoughs of the late 1980s bust in Alaska when jobs were slashed, entire residential blocks were turned over to the banks and more than 8 percent of the state's population fled to the Lower 48.

Young Alaskans today have many career options after high school. Some jump right into a job that requires basic skills while others continue with vocational education or college. An important and often overlooked option is taking part in a registered apprenticeship program. Roughly 11,000 young Alaskans join the working-age population each year and are in need of education and training. Those youth have to compete with people who are unemployed, estimated at nearly 28,000 for Alaska in December 2008, and a national labor force that sends thousands of nonresident workers to Alaska each year to fill jobs that require a significant skill level.

Alaska's average monthly job count grew by 2,400 in 2008, an increase of 0.7 percent. It was the state's 21st consecutive year of growth, a streak only four other states can match or exceed. But the nation and world are in economic turmoil heading into 2009 and there are more questions than answers about how Alaska will be affected. The 2009 forecast is for a loss of 700 jobs, a number that reflects two conclusions. The first is that Alaska will not completely escape an economic storm that looks like it will get worse before it gets better. The second is that the state is in a relatively strong position to weather it.

Alaska is still the No. 1 fishing state in the nation, a position it's held since 1975, based on the state's 2007 catch. The catch was Alaska's third-highest in value since statehood and it's sixth-largest in volume.

A spate of new large retailers opened in late 2008 and more are scheduled to open in 2009, at the same time retail is facing closing and layoffs across the country. But it's too early to tell if Alaska will fully escape those travails. Only time will tell.

There's little doubt that the discovery of oil in Prudhoe Bay transformed Alaska's economy far beyond anyone's imagination. With as much as a third of the state's current economic activity somehow tied to oil, it certainly deserves a prominent place on Alaska's economic stage.