Expanding Job Opportunities for Alaska Natives (Interim Report)

Abstract

Alaska's Native people need more jobs. In 1994, the Alaska Natives Commission reported that "acute and chronic" unemployment throughout Alaska's Native communities was undermining Native society. The situation has not improved in the past several years, and it could worsen. The number of working-age Natives is growing much faster than the number of new jobs. Also, recent welfare reforms require welfare recipients to either get jobs or at least do some "work activity" which means that more Alaska Natives will be looking for work. The Alaska Federation of Natives wants to find ways of reducing the high unemployment among Alaska Natives. As part of that effort, it contracted with the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska Anchorage to describe current employment among Alaska Natives and to look for ways of expanding job opportunities. This is an interim report, and it has some limits. First, information on employment by race is hard to get and hard to verify. The best information on Alaska Native employment is from the 1990 federal census. We used that 1990 census information and other data to put together what we consider a reasonable picture of Native employment. Clearly the federal census in the year 2000 will supply more current information. Also, we had limited time and money to collect information on the many public and private programs targeting Native hire. We were not able to learn about all programs, and in some cases we had to rely on just one or two people to tell us about specific programs. Despite its limits, we hope this report can contribute to increasing job opportunities for Alaska Natives. Here we first summarize current Native employment and employment trends. Then we describe what seem to be promising approaches for increasing Native employment.