Unemployment in the Haines Borough was at 12% in February — the lowest recorded in February since 1991, according to state data.

Haines’ employed workforce grew from 781 in February 2019 to 839 in 2022. The number of people working in the borough in February hadn’t eclipsed 800 since 2013. (Each year the workforce swells, and unemployment falls, in summer.)

Yet a worker shortage persists, not only in Haines but across the state. Alaska had 30,000 job openings in January of this year, nearly triple the number from a decade ago, according to the state’s April economic trends report.

Sarah Jaymot announced last weekend that she is closing Sarah J’s Espresso Shoppe for the season, starting April 15, due to staffing troubles. “After four solid months of trying my hardest, searching as hard as I could, even recruiting people out of my drive through window, we have come to the breaking point. Due to staffing crises felt all over the world, but more importantly right here in our home town, Sarah J’s will be temporarily closing our door for the summer season,” she wrote on Facebook, adding that the Fireweed restaurant will be open.

Last month Mountain Market temporarily closed its espresso bar and limited kitchen services due to short staffing. Although Rusty Compass is still selling soup and premade sandwiches, the cafe stopped offering its traditional lunch items due to staffing shortages and increased food costs and availability, owner Lee Robinson told the CVN.

Exactly what’s causing the labor shortage in Haines is unclear. Nationwide there has been a so-called “Great Resignation” during the pandemic, with millions of people quitting their jobs. Many of those workers merely changed jobs, whether for better salaries or benefits or a more flexible lifestyle. Some economists have argued that pandemic-related jobless benefits, stimulus checks and an incresae in savings contributed to the shortage.

In Alaska, state economists say the workforce shortage might be explained by a mix of pandemic dynamics and the demographics of the “missing workers” — people who dropped out of the workforce and haven’t returned.

The majority of those workers are 60 or older, according to the April trends report. Not only are people in that age bracket more likely to have retired, and less likely to return to the labor market, but “Alaska’s working-age population was shrinking well before the pandemic hit,” Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development economist Dan Robinson wrote in the report. “In the decade before covid, the number of Alaskans ages 15 to 64 peaked in 2013 at about 509,000, then fell by nearly 30,000 over the next seven years as the large baby boomer cohort aged out of their typical working years.”

In addition to boomers, Alaska’s missing workers tended to be in the 30-39 age range, a demographic that has been leaving Alaska more quickly than coming, Dan Robinson said.

Still, in Haines, February’s unemployment number signals not merely a rebound from the worst days of the pandemic but a modest increase in employment from pre-pandemic levels. A year ago, the borough had 17.2% unemployment. The February prior, in 2020, just before the pandemic hit the U.S., the borough’s unemployment was at 15%.

Those data track with the trend over the last few months. The borough’s unemployment was at 10.5% in December, the lowest it has been in December, although not by much, since 1990.

Even so, it’s not clear when the state’s labor shortage will ease.

“Employers need to know whether their trouble finding workers will dissipate as the pandemic wanes, and the short answer is no,” Dan Robinson said.