By: DJ Summers
Harvesting Alaska seafood ranks between oil and tourism in economic impact, according to a new report detailing on the commercial fishing industry.
The Juneau-based economics firm McDowell Group released an updated study on the economic impacts of the commercial fishing industry on Jan. 19. The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, a private-state collaboration designed to increase Alaska seafood’s worldwide value, contracted the report.
According to the report, seafood created 41,100 full time equivalent jobs and $2.1 billion in labor income between 2013 and 2014; 17,600 of the total were Alaska resident commercial fishermen, who took a total ex-vessel income of $735 million in 2014.
The report found a growth in seafood employment from 2010-14, with more resident fishermen, processors, and total earnings and harvest levels. In 2014, the state had 500 more seafood jobs than 2010, representing a $24 million payroll growth.
Alaska is the country’s largest seafood producer, and hauling in fish, as well as processing and selling them, creates the largest source of direct private employment in the state.
Fisheries data can be hard to nail down, with swings in employment and harvest from year to year. The updated report takes the yearly averages from both 2013 and 2014 to smooth the data.
The report did not examine the economics of sport fishing or subsistence fishing.
The North Pacific is home to some of the most verdant marine ecosystems in the world, and the proof lies in harvest statistics. Sixty percent of the nation’s seafood landings — more than every other state combined — come from Alaska waters. The state exports more seafood than any other product, renewable or non-renewable. If Alaska were its own country, it would rank sixth in the world for seafood exports.
Production continues to rise. The 2014 seafood harvest totaled $1.9 billion in dockside prices. The resulting processed products raked in $4.2 billion on the wholesale market. The rising value comes mostly from the fisheries in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, or BSAI.
“Harvest and wholesale values have risen substantially (27 and 24 percent, respectively) in the last five years in the BSAI region,” the reports reads, “by far the most of any region in Alaska. Without these increases, statewide values would be roughly flat over the time period.”
The revenue has benefits for the state.
“Commercial fishing and processing businesses pay substantial taxes and fees to operate in Alaska, including more than $138.6 million in 2014,” the report reads.
The large-scale fisheries output isn’t localized only in the Last Frontier. Supply chains and retails operations add up to a sizable national economic base resting on North Pacific fisheries. Alaska’s seafood industry creates 111,800 full time equivalent jobs nationally, with $5.8 billion in labor income and $14.8 billion in total economic output.
Salmon and pollock run the show
Alaska’s salmon is the ocean’s North Slope, as far as economic impact goes.
Due to copyright law, the Alaska Salmon Alliance cannot repost full articles. You can read the whole article here.
Because the Alaska Salmon Alliance wish to provide a wide breadth of information, we sometimes provide links and documents that may conflict or present only one perspective on an issue. Because of that, we feel it is important to note that none of the content provided on our website necessarily represents the views or opinions of the Alaska Salmon Alliance, excepting, of course, those articles authored by us.