By SUZANNE DOWNING
Sept. 21, 2026 – Sitka has more jobs than it did a decade ago, but fewer residents in their prime working years to fill them. A new report on Sitka’s economy shows how heavily the community now relies on workers who live elsewhere.
The Sept. 16 report, prepared by Rain Coast Data, estimates that Sitka had 6,130 jobs in 2025, up about 150 from the year before. Employment-related earnings rose 10% to $414 million. Yet the number of residents ages 19 to 59 fell from 5,096 in 2014 to 4,221 in 2025 — a loss of 875 people in that age group while the local economy added jobs.
Nearly half of Sitka’s workers are classified as nonlocal in the report’s most recent residency figures, which are from 2024. Its chart shows about 40% were residents of other states and another 6% were Alaskans living outside Sitka.
The report puts the number of out-of-state workers at roughly 2,660 and their wages at $68 million. It cautions that its nonresident category can include people who have recently moved to Alaska but are not yet eligible for a Permanent Fund Dividend.
The figures describe workers over the course of a year, while the report’s job total is an annual average that also includes estimates for self-employment and active-duty Coast Guard personnel. They should not be read as a count of jobs occupied simultaneously by nonresidents.
Sitka’s population edged up by 10 people in 2025, to 8,032, but the report says that was only its third annual increase in a dozen years. The population remains about 1,000 below its 2012 level. Over the same period that the prime working-age group shrank, the number of residents age 60 and older grew by about 380.
Housing presents another part of the workforce challenge. Sitka added 425 housing units from 2010 through 2025, according to the report, but the number of occupied units fell by nearly 300. Of 721 units listed as vacant in 2024, 353 were designated for seasonal or recreational use and 97 were associated with people whose current residence was elsewhere. Just 42 were listed as available for rent.
Building more housing has not necessarily meant more homes available to year-round workers. The report also finds that short-term rentals have not grown substantially in recent years; it estimates that only 15 entire-home listings were available for most of the year.
Sitka’s economy nonetheless posted gains across several major industries in 2025. Construction employment rose 18%, to an estimated 333 jobs, while seafood industry employment rose 5%, to 955. Healthcare, seafood and the visitor industry together accounted for about $202 million in employment-related earnings, nearly half the community total.
The report’s central tension is that Sitka has a smaller resident pool of working-age people and fewer occupied homes than it once did.
2 thoughts on “Sitka adds jobs and wages, but struggles to keep working-age residents”
It’s my understanding from some friends still there the liberal Sitka leaders about eleven years ago made some mistakes affecting the price of Sitkans electric bills.
Can you imagine having a two-bedroom apart your renting and paying a 800$ electric bill? Or living on a boat the single little lightbulb you use costs you 150 a month?
Sitka town has changed much since the 1970-1980 conservatives were leading it. But under poor liberal leaders from the 1990s to the present it’s very unaffordable while you can live elsewhere costs less than Sitka.
Certainly, we don’t want any real Alaskans with conservative values moving into Sitka. Me and my mommy have always preferred that Sitka remain conservative free. That’s why we embrace people from the lower 48 with Marxist and socialist leanings to move here, register to vote here, and elect me. That formula has worked for the past 10 years and kept me elected in the Legislature. All the wacko Republicans in South Central and Interior Alaska need not visit or move here. My mommy won’t even do a physical exam on a Republican. We like trannies, homosexuals, lesbians and non-binaries. It makes Sitka great.