Alaska’s catching and processing sectors were heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, finds a new report detailing the regional, state-wide, and national economic effects of Alaska’s seafood industry from the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI).
According to the latest edition of ‘The Economic Value of Alaska’s Seafood Industry’, published in January 2022 by ASMI, while the state’s fishing industry is renowned for its resilience, whereby a weak season for one species is usually offset by a strong year for another, the industry suffered both from widespread COVID-19 impacts and from biological factors in several key fisheries in 2020.
The report establishes that the participation by Alaska commercial fishermen dropped 12% for permit holders and 28% for crew in 2020 compared to the prior year, representing a decline of 1,058 skippers and 6,555 crewmembers, respectively.
Similarly, peak processing employment declined by 21% or 4,290 employees, as companies struggled to fill positions and reconfigured operations to increase social distancing.
At the same time, the ex-vessel value declined 27% from $2 billion in 2019 to $1.5 billion in 2020, with impacts felt across every major species group. The first wholesale value declined slightly less at 21% – representing roughly $1 billion in reduced revenue to processors.
These value declines were due to both lower salmon returns unrelated to the virus and COVID-related price declines due to stalled demand from the foodservice sector as restaurants were closed, ASMI said.
The production value was also impacted in some cases by a shift to lower value product forms due to the inability to fully staff processing plants.
Meanwhile, the state’s processors spent upwards of $70 million on COVID mitigation costs, primarily on charter travel, quarantine facilities, security, and virus screening and testing.
Mitigation costs to harvesters are not as well quantified, but were also significant along with impacts to fishing schedules and other consequences, ASMI said.
It also acknowledged that government aid helped offset the mitigation costs and revenue declines to some degree, but that while funds flowed quickly to communities, distribution to industry was less efficient, with a patchwork of programmes, a lack of programmes for processors, and gaps in access.
The report states that certain aspects of the Alaska seafood industry may have returned to normal in 2021, but adds that some of the changes brought by the pandemic may have long-term consequences.
“It is too early to determine how these changes might affect the long-term economic impacts of Alaska’s seafood industry,” it said.
High shipping costs – brought by such things as a shortage of empty containers and heavy congestion at ports – were a key lingering consequence of the pandemic at the end of 2021. Also, labour costs for Alaska seafood processors soared last year.
The institute also highlights that US grocery stores reported record seafood sales during the pandemic and these sales remained elevated above pre-pandemic levels even as foodservice spending recovered in summer and fall 2021.
ASMI is a public-private partnership between the State of Alaska and the Alaska seafood industry. It is funded by an industry-directed 0.5% marketing assessment based on the ex-vessel value of Alaska seafood and USDA funding supporting American export industries.
