Statewide Construction Round-Up for 2000.

• Author: POHL, JOHN
• Position: Statistical Data Included

Construction is a mainstay of the Alaska economy, pumping money and jobs through both urban and rural areas, contributing to its economic health and prosperity. The nature of the industry is always in flux, however, and each decade since the 1940s has been built from a different blueprint. This decade is no different.

According to economist Neal Fried of the Alaska Department of Labor, the construction industry boomed statewide in the war years of the 1940s with the construction of the Alaska Highway and various military installations. This boom continued into the 1950s as the Cold War developed and additional military installations were built or expanded. The 1960s were a time of infrastructure catch-up as the industry labored to accommodate the state's dramatic population growth. In the 1970s, the industry was vibrant with its largest project ever, the construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. In the early 1980s, oil revenues--made possible by the pipeline--began to flow into the state's coffers, and a construction boom in both the public and private sectors followed. During the second half of the 1980s a construction and economic bust developed; this altered the face of the industry and its role in the economy. In the 1990s, the industry began to recover and has since settled into the most stable period of growth yet seen.

This decreased activity but increased stability is a big change for the industry. December 1998's Alaska Economic Trends construction report outlines how in the decades before the 1990s, the direction and strength of the Alaska economy was "often led, and to some extent dictated," by the construction industry and its projects. "Put another way, the destiny of the state's economic health was often determined by the level of construction activity. During the last decade, this role has largely disappeared." Rather than the economy reacting to the construction agenda, the economic climate has shifted so that construction now accommodates the rest of the economy.

This is not to say that the Alaska construction industry is declining. Far from it! Instead, the Alaska Economic Trends report describes the industry as one "whose role has changed relative to the rest of the state's economy. Some might even call it part of the 'maturing' of the Alaska economy. As a young frontier state, with tremendous infrastructure needs and a small work force, it was natural that construction played a much more important role in Alaska's economy in past years relative to most of the rest of the nation." Alaska's construction industry has grown steadily--if not mercurially--throughout the last decade. But it would take capital projects of the magnitude of oil development in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge or the construction of a gas pipeline to conceivably send construction employment and wages soaring back to the level seen during the construction of the transAlaska pipeline.

Against this historical backdrop looms...