Complete recovery may happen in 2023, attendees of Southeast Conference, a regional economic and local government conference,“We’re building back, but we’re not entirely there yet,” said Meilani Schijvens of Rain Coast Data, an economic firm that focuses on Southeast Alaska.
Southeast Alaska is heavily reliant on the tourism industry, and tourists who arrive in Southeast Alaska by cruise ship The regional fishing industry — another economic mainstay — also suffered in 2020 from poor salmon returns and low prices. Statewide, employment is down by 6%. For context, national employment was higher in June 2022 than it was in June 2019.Though the region hasn’t fully recovered, surveys conducted by Schijvens found business owners more optimistic about the future than at any point since the COVID-19 pandemic began.