Despite near-record job levels, the region is losing working-age families due to a lack of affordable housing and child care, among other factors, a consultant told delegates to the Southeast Conference.

“The number one problem is our declining younger (population),” Meilani Schijvens, director of the consulting firm Rain Coast Data, said in her comments on the first day of the annual conference Sept. 15 in Sitka.

“For Southeast Alaska to prosper in the future we must focus on attracting and retaining a vibrant future population.”

More than 250 business leaders, municipal and tribal government officials, and nonprofit organization representatives attended the conference, where Schijvens presented her annual Southeast by the Numbers report.

She cited the region’s demographics as the “biggest weakness in the Southeast Alaska economy right now.” The population across the region declined by 576 people (0.8%) from 2023 to 2024.

“In the last 10 years, we’ve lost 2,200 kids from the region, 5,500 people of prime workforce age, and we’ve added 4,000 seniors (through aging),” she said. “We have to continue to focus on how to grow our workforce and grow our own.”

Wrangell suffered the sharpest drop in working-age population — 29% — among Southeast communities between 2014 and 2024, she reported. Prince of Wales Island communities were not far behind, with a 25% decline, followed by Haines, at 19%.

The decline in working-age residents — 20 through 64 years old — was steeper than Wrangell’s overall population decrease between 2014 and 2024 from just over 2,400 to just over 2,000, about a 17% drop.

The community lost 147 working-age residents from 2020 to 2024, according to the state statistics released in January. At the same time, the community’s senior citizen population — 65 and older — grew by 91.

Every community showed a loss of working-age residents over the past 10 years, adding to employers’ difficulties in filing vacant jobs.

Another major takeaway from Schijvens’ report is the changing economic picture toward tourism. “It’s changing significantly,” she said.

In the past dozen years, Southeast has lost 915 retail jobs, 1,300 in state government, 1,050 in seafood (including 600 fishing jobs) and 150 jobs in the timber industry.

At the same time, the region added jobs in tourism (2,600), health care (800) and mining (500).

The Southeast by the Numbers report is commissioned by Southeast Conference.

Tourism is having another strong year with a record 1.73 million visitors expected; mining is expected to continue up; while seafood “continues to be of concern,” Schijvens said.

Despite the relatively strong start to 2025, “business leaders are approaching the future with reduced confidence, driven largely by federal actions.”

Addressing the issue of demographics and attracting new workers to the region, she said the top reason people may take a job is recreation opportunities, followed by the “homegrown” factor and the communities’ quality of life.

The main reasons people don’t take a job in Southeast or leave includes the lack or cost of housing; the cost of living; and the lack and cost of child care.

“This is what we need to be spending our resources on,” Schijvens said. “These things: We need to make sure we’re not cutting recreation in communities, as we’re trying very hard to attract and retain young families and working-age population.”

In Schijvens' survey of business leaders, some 79% said limited housing causes staff to leave or decline a job offer, “leading to labor shortages.”

The Wrangell Sentinel contributed reporting for this story.