Alaska labor force grows.

• Author: Steffens, Michelle
• Position: Alaska Trends - Brief article

The labor force consists of all members in a specified region who are either employed or unemployed and actively seeking work. Alaska's labor force has steadily risen since 2001 and stood at 360,078 people by May 2009. This represents a 12 percent increase over the January 2001 count of 320,498 people.

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The distribution of employed and unemployed individuals remained fairly constant through the end of 2008. The two counts paralleled each other as the labor force grew. Alaska observed its highest percentage of working individuals in February 2007 with 94.03 percent of the labor force employing 329,040 laborers.

A noticeable change occurred in Alaska's labor force at 2009's start...