The abundance of groundfish and crab in Alaska’s Aleutians
West population census area provides several hundred year-round opportunities
for employment annually in the seafood processing business.
Several hundred residents of the Aleutians West census area
were employed in 2011 in the manufacturing industry, including seafood product
preparation and packaging, state labor economist Mali Abrahamson noted in an
article in the November edition of Alaska
Economic Trends.
In fact only 1,550 of the total 3,844 jobs available in the
Aleutians West were outside of the seafood processing industry.
In other areas of Alaska, seafood jobs tend to be filled
more often by migrant and transient workers, and in fact in 2010, nearly 75
percent of seafood processing workers in Alaska were nonresidents.
In some other areas of the state, by comparison, seafood
jobs tend to be filled by migrant and transient workers. In fact, in 2010,
nearly 75 percent of seafood processing workers in Alaska were nonresidents.
But Abrahamson notes that the crab and groundfish fisheries
of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands that use Dutch Harbor as a processing
port are unlike the coastal salmon fisheries in other Alaska regions. They take
place far offshore in federal waters, and span both summer and winter, and by
their volume draw the neighboring salmon fisheries.
In 2011, for the 15th consecutive year, Dutch
Harbor was recognized as the top ranking seafood port in the nation for
pounds of fish harvested. The crab and groundfish fisheries have prompted the
development of an area dedicated to the harvesting, packaging and delivery of
seafood to dealers all over the globe.