2018 Corporate 100 Executive Summary.

• Author: Mackenzie, Kathryn
• Position: Corporate 100

April in Alaska is exciting. The last vestiges of winter start to melt away as spring slowly emerges from the depths of snow and ice collected during the long, dark months. With each day of extended sunlight Alaskans begin to emerge from the winter haze with green vistas on their minds and a spring in their step. April also means it's time for the annual Alaska Business Corporate 100, where we celebrate the companies that build our economy and communities through providing jobs.

For several years Alaska Business has been ranking the Corporate 100 by number of Alaska employees, recognizing how important quality positions are in every Alaska community. To qualify for the Corporate 100, businesses are required to operate at minimum one physical location in Alaska and disclose their number of Alaska workers as well as their global workforce when applicable. If there is a tie in Alaska employees, the date the company was established in Alaska is used to determine ranking.

The 2018 Corporate 100 is particularly exciting with several new entries and a number of changes in ranking--including a shake-up in the top five companies and a new number one.

Though we received a flood of new entries this year, the top five companies on the list are familiar names to Alaskans and together employ more than 20,700 workers here (and nearly 429,000 employees worldwide). All together the 2018 Alaska Business Corporate 100 employ 72,899 people in Alaska and 2.4 million worldwide. The number of Alaska employees is lower than the 2017 figure of 89,329, a decrease of 16,430, or about 18 percent.

While it's true that Alaska has lost jobs over the past year, the drop in numbers reported by the Corporate 100 is in part affected by several companies coming on or off the list, as well as a few companies changing their employee reporting methods. More to the point, it's not news to anyone that many of Alaska's industries have for years been feeling the impact of the price of oil, but it also shouldn't surprise any of our astute readers to know that the companies employing Alaska are bullish about the state, its future, and the opportunities here. Alaskans are resilient, and many indicators point to Alaska's troubled economy leveling out, the first step on the path to growth.

Top Five Employers

Despite seemingly troubled waters, our Corporate 100 continue to move forward, and leading them is Trident Seafoods Corporation with 5,887 employees in Alaska and 10,000 worldwide...