Sizing up the employment industry.

• Author: Kilcup, Jodi
• Position: Alaska's job market

Longtime Alaskans have experienced the state's roller-coaster job market. Many times when the economy has heated up in the lower 48, work has slowed in the 49th state, causing job opportunities to evaporate. On the other hand, when the doldrums have besieged Outside markets, the good times frequently have started rolling up here, bringing increased demand for workers.

Trend watchers in Alaska's employment industry warn against complacent acceptance of the boom-bust cycle. Many economists say this national recession, unlike more classic slowdowns in the past, may reflect a fundamental shift in the way Americans work. In the years ahead, Alaska too will be pulled into the vortex of change.

Such trends are food for speculation at employment agencies, which have witnessed the state economy's extreme highs and lows of the past decade. To keep pace with their industry, employment counselors keep one eye on macro trends at the natioal level and the other eye trained on the specific prospects of individuals looking for jobs in the local market.

Alaska long has been mythologized as the place where an adventuresome soul, with little formal education, can settle and make a fortune. Such legends have been supported by many real-life examples, from Gov. Walter Hickel to Larry Carr, founder of the Carrs Quality Foods empire.

But today's Alaskans probably will need more education to join the ranks of the state's self-made heroes. Ron Fraze, president and owner of North Employment Agency in Anchorage, says, "We need to recognize that 90 percent of blue-collar jobs will be gone by the year 2000. The work force is changing. This is probably the last generation that can do without an education to compete well. Everyone will have to be computer literate."

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Ken Goldstein, an economist who analyzes national recruitment advertising for the New York-based Conference Board, comments in HRM News, a publication of the Society for Human Resource Management, that this recession is not the cause of the depressed job market nationwide. Overall, he notes, there seems to be a shift in corporate concerns - what he calls the "substitution of capital for labor," or machines for people.

"This trend has been happening for some time, but now is accelerating," according to Goldstein. The already low demand for the entry-level worker with no skills and little education is expected to shrink still more because of the increasing use of technology.

Supply & Demand. Bettye Smith, owner and president of Personnel Pool Temporary Service in Anchorage and president of Alaska...