According to official report an average of 7,260 commercial fishermen in Alaska are plying their trade each month. It is said that the commercial fishing population hits 20,137 at the salmon-season peak each summer. But the jobs in seafood processing and other support services in fishing industry are said to rise at least 54,000 on average during this year.
The state Labour Department has reported this in the November issue of it “Alaska Economic Trends,” which tracks employment in the fishing industry from 1988 through 2007. It is told that fish harvesting jobs are tough to track because they don’t generate payroll records and other documents usually used to calculate employment. According to the report the state has projects under way to compile more information on the working profiles of the “boots on deck” fishermen, and their economic importance to coastal communities.
It is said that salmon provided the most fishing jobs, and 30 percent of those jobs were in Bristol Bay, where 2,303 permits were fished last year. Ground-fish landings in Alaska waters topped 4 billion pounds and generated 1,182 jobs in 2007; the halibut fishery put 1,246 fishermen to work. Pat Shanahan, program director for the Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers trade group, said that many people think that getting fish into Alaska schools should be easy because it is a fish producing state.
