The official numbers are in and it will come as no surprise to residents of the Aleutians that most people in the region work either directly or indirectly for the seafood industry.

A new report from the Alaska Department of Labor examines the economy of the Aleutians West census area in detail, pointing out that it’s “an outlier in nearly every category in comparison to the rest of the state.” 

While most seafood processing jobs in the state are seasonal and the workers transient, in the Aleutians, nearly 30 percent of processing workers are residents of the area. Mali Abrahamson, a state economist and the report’s author, attributes the above-average number to the massive volumes of fish processed in the region throughout the year.

There is still a large transient population, however, a fact that Abrahamson illustrates by pointing out that almost half of the region’s population lives in group quarters rather than individual houses.

Other large employment sectors in the Aleutians are transportation and warehousing, retail, and health care, although Abrahamson notes that many of those jobs are tied to the seafood industry.

Employment in the region has remained mostly steady over the last decade at around 3,500 jobs, but wages have increased significantly over that same time period. 2011 was a record year, with more than $160 million paid out.