This year’s Southeast Alaska by the Numbers shows that Southeast communities are emerging out of the 2020 collapse of the regional economy.
• Thanks to congressional action suspending the Passenger Vessel Services Act, which requires cruises between U.S. ports to be in American-built and manned ships, a small late-2021 cruise season happened, with about 10 percent of normal passenger.
• A 2022 cruise season could bring more than 1.5 million passengers to the region.
• The seafood sector crashed in 2020, but the 2021 salmon harvest is coming in much stronger.
• Regional construction is up, with jobs in the industry gaining 9 percent in the first half of 2021. Many projects are tourism-related.
• Health care was the largest private sector industry in 2021.
•Mining wages in Southeast’s producing mines gained 9 percent in 2020.
