How expensive is it to live in Alaska? How much has Alaska's cost of living increased? These are two of the most frequently asked questions of the Alaska Department of Labor's Research and Analysis Section. In answer to these questions, this article provides some of the latest cost-of-living measurements available for Alaska and explains the uses and limitations of these data.

Each January, the Alaska Department of Labor (AKDOL) revises the nonagricultural wage and salary employment data series in a procedure called benchmarking. The 1997 benchmark revised the employment estimates for 1996 and 1997. Those revised estimates are published in this issue of Alaska Economic Trends.

A large number of nonresident workers are hired in Alaska every year, creating a negative impact on the Alaska economy. Employers hire nonresidents to work in Alaska for many legitimate reasons. However, too often employers assume that no qualified workers are available in Alaska, and therefore, they don't even attempt to hire here. Through information, education and recruitment efforts, the Alaska Department of Labor (AKDOL) is continually working to increase the employment of Alaska workers in jobs currently filled by nonresidents.

Local public education is one of Alaska's largest industries. Alaska's local school districts, combined, represent one of the state's biggest employers. Jobs with local school districts in kindergarten through 12th grade number over 20,000--nearly seven percent of all wage and salary jobs in Alaska.

Sitka, located on the west side of Baranof Island on the outside waters of the Southeast Alaska panhandle, is a community steeped in history. A former Russian and U.S. territorial capital, and a center of Tlingit culture, Sitka has a rich heritage and a relatively strong and diverse economy. Fishing, health care, education, tourism and government all play important roles in the local economy.

For many years, one of the most important tasks of the Alaska Department of Labor has been tracking levels of employment, labor force, and earnings. Every year, Alaska's economy experiences huge seasonal swings in these measures, the degrees of which are unrivaled by any other state. In 1996, for example, employment in the state's peak month exceeded that in the lowest month by nearly 35,000 jobs, or more than 14 percent. Seasonality in the Alaska economy exists for obvious reasons, and although the state's maturing economy has helped moderate the seasonal swings, nothing will stop them from recurring each year.

In the last two decades, oil has come to dominate Alaska's economy, but originally another sector of the mining industry fueled employment and population growth in the state. Metal mining, particularly the quest for gold, sparked the founding of many communities in Alaska's first 50 years as a territory and provided an economic base for these boomtowns. Settlements in the Southeast and Interior regions and the Kenai and Seward peninsulas sprang up during the early gold rushes. Metal mining activity decreased in the years following statehood due to low metal prices, high costs and lack of infrastructure. It recently has rebounded. Although it now represents only a small portion of the state's economy, metal mining has the potential for significant growth. This article examines the current structure and economic impacts of Alaska's metal mining industry.

The Matanuska-Susitna Borough is the third largest in Alaska, with 24,683 square miles; it is about the same size as West Virginia. Home to three incorporated cities and at least 13 other identified communities (See Table 1 .), the Mat- Su Borough is the third most populous area of the state. Even though the borough is large, and most of its landmass is remote, approximately 90 percent of its more than 52,000 residents live along the road system between Willow and Sutton. The few communities in the borough that are off the road system can be reached by boat, snow machine, off-road vehicle, bush plane or the Alaska Railroad

Haines Borough's nearly 2,400 square miles of rainforest, lakes, rivers and mountains lie at thenorthern end of Lynn Canal in the northern extremities of the Southeast Alaska Panhandle. Roughly double the area of the state of Rhode Island, Haines Borough shares part of its border with Canada's British Columbia.

In the world of work today, the alliance between workers and employers is radically changing, and so is the business of linking job seekers to potential employers. Linking employers to workers and workers to jobs is the business of labor exchange. Labor exchange, beyond paying unemployment insurance benefits to the tens of thousands of Alaskan workers temporarily laid off each year, has been the role of the Alaska Department of Labor's (AKDOL) Employment Security Division for 60 years.