EDITORIAL: What does Alaska’s nonresident workforce cost us?

A common jab thrown at Anchorage is that “you can see Alaska from here.” It’s a cheap laugh line insinuating the state’s largest city is somehow removed from the realities of living in the north — and while there are grains of truth to the notion that city residents are insulated from some of the harsher aspects of life farther afield (particularly off the road system), this is nonetheless Alaska.

Nearly a quarter of Alaska’s workforce, however, can’t see Alaska from their homes. The state Department of Labor and Workforce Development released data this month indicating that Alaska’s nonresident workforce has reached its highest share of the state’s labor pool in decades, with 22.5% of workers residing outside Alaska. That’s a problem in several respects — especially for some of the jobs that matter most to Alaskans.

Since territorial days, Alaska has had some measure of imported labor — Outside fishing boat captains and cannery workers to staff the commercial fishing industry, Lower 48 roughnecks working oil rigs on the North Slope, summer arrivals who fill the glut of tourism jobs. It’s something we’ve become used to, and some measure of it is necessary; for a variety of reasons, Alaska’s labor pool isn’t sufficient to fill all of the jobs available here, particularly those that are seasonal or temporary.

But in recent years, the trends surrounding nonresident workers have been more troubling. One contributing factor is outmigration from the state, which has outweighed new arrivals for a dozen years running now, leaving Alaska with 57,000 fewer residents. Not only does that loss diminish the pool of resident workers, it is both a symptom of and contributor to the state’s weaker-than-average economic growth. If we’re unable to stem the state’s population decline — particularly among young Alaskans who stand to contribute to our communities for decades — it’s hard to imagine the state’s economic picture getting brighter.

And there are aspects of the nonresident worker picture that are even more troubling than its economic consequences. In some rural communities that have struggled to hire law enforcement officers, the local governments have turned to flying in police officers who live Outside. The officers work shifts reminiscent of North Slope oil workers — a couple weeks on, then a flight back Outside to the communities where they live with their families.

The communities are between a rock and a hard place when it comes to providing law enforcement, so it’s hard to fault them for filling that need however they can. But an imported police force from thousands of miles away is a major issue. Public safety relies on maintaining strong ties and trust of the community being served, and that’s near-impossible when officers choose to leave town whenever they’re not on the clock. Trust issues between rural communities and law enforcement are already rife; what does it say when officers choose to be elsewhere at any time when they’re not being paid? What’s more, so much of the job relies on relationships and knowledge of the community, which is much harder to develop when none of it happens outside of working hours.

It’s not just a problem with police officers, either: While nonresident workers may be eminently qualified for the work they do, they aren’t as invested in Alaska or its communities. When your kids don’t attend the schools in the place where you work, you don’t care as much if the classes are overcrowded. When you’re only around while you’re working, you care less about the community’s neighborhoods being inviting or the roads you don’t use being plowed. And Alaska has no means of capturing revenue from nonresident workers, so the vast majority of their wages leave the state and never return. By contrast, money spent locally continues to recirculate through the community, creating a multiplier effect that can give a powerful boost to small businesses.

We can’t eradicate every nonresident job in Alaska, nor should we try to — a certain number of jobs staffed by non-Alaskans is necessary to keep our industries humming at necessary employment levels. But we should take a long look at some of the harder truths that Alaska’s high percentage of nonresident workers reveals, and try to maximize both the amount of economic activity that stays local to our state and workers’ investment in the communities where they do their jobs.