of the House Labor and Commerce Committee will come to order.
The time is 3.19 p.m. on January 28th.
Members present are Representative Carrick,
Representative Colomb, Representative Freer,
Representative Sadler,
Representative Nelson, Co-Chair Field,
and myself, co-chair Hall.
We have a quorum.
Please silence cell phones.
They're asking that staff and members of
the audience not approach the table
if you need to pass a note to committee members.
Please get the attention of our
committee aid Evan Anderson, and they will take care of it.
I'd like to thank Andrew Magnusson, the Labor and Commerce Secretary, and Susan Quigley from the Juno LAO for technical and teleconferencing support.
Today we have one item on the agenda.
We are hearing a presentation on The Growing Rule of Seniors and Youth in the Workforce.
We're joined by Dan Robinson.
the Chief of Research and Analysis for the Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
Mr. Robinson, thank you for joining us. Please put your name on the record and we'd love
to hear your presentation. Thank you.
Thank You and good afternoon for
the Record Dan Robinson Research Chief at the Alaska Department
of labor and workforce development. And we're going to go over two articles that were in our October
2025 issue of Alaska economic trends. I only have I think six slides and then I'd be happy to answer
any questions you have. And we'll jump right in starting with youth. This is the the issue,
the cover, and that's just a QR code of CR code. QR? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
mind-lapse there, but if you haven't, all of you receive a paper copy, I know that,
but anybody watching wants to get a free electronic copy. This is an easy way to
get there. So looking first at the youth, as I mentioned, what we...
see here just to get oriented is the the bars in the back that's the total
number of resident workers in Alaska over that period it's zoomed in a little
bit so that we can see the change it looks a
little what more dramatic than it would be if we included zero on this graph
but the the blue line is the percent of those workers who are youth and for this article that
was defined as 14 to 17 and what you see is kind of an interesting decline
That started early 2000s through the Great Recession and then and fairly low rates, and this was true nationally as well
the percentage of and
This is the percentage of the workforce that are teens
Separate from that is a percent of teens who are working. So we may need to
I may to explain that if there's any confusion there, but but probably most relevant to this recent work
was the increase post-COVID and that's a fairly healthy increase and it's stayed high and I'll
pause there in case there any questions before I move on. Seeing no questions from the committee.
This graph shows the wages and what we see here, first again, to get oriented.
This is average quarterly wage and you can see post-COVID 2020 or during COVID.
It jumped up to 2188. So these are fairly low wages, as you'd expect from 14 to 17 year olds.
but $8,000 if you work all four quarters,
that's a dent of college tuition.
But the point, mostly being these types of workers,
14 to 17 year olds, are mostly,
they're working low wage jobs,
they working in low paid jobs.
But, the amount they made did jump and...
We're fairly sure that's because employers were hungry for workers of all types.
So most of these workers are, as you'd expect, in hotels, restaurants, retail.
In fact, those hotels and restaurants in retail make up about half of
workers over these time periods, all of them.
And then there's some local government.
There's a little bit of construction, not much,
and a bit just scattered across all industries.
Again, almost all them low-paid construction.
It's tiny bit an outlier in terms of they make a
little more.
And just one small underline.
So, wages go up when the demand for labor exceeds the supply a little bit, it's just
basic economics.
So as workers, I mean as employers, we're especially hungry to fill vacant positions,
they reach to a small degree into this workforce and you see the wage response to that, which
then makes it much more appealing for those workers to work if they go from $12 an hour
I'll pause here again if there are any questions before I go on.
Okay.
Please proceed.
So moving to seniors, it's similar at the end of the graph, an increase, but what you
of the percentage of total resident workforce that are workers 65 or older.
And I'll show you a slide in a minute that makes that even more dramatic.
But it, and, well, I will save what I'm going to say for a better graph in
a minutes.
Same background slide, the total number of resident workers and then the
percentage that they're 65 plus.
Representative Sadler.
Thank you.
Through the chair, Mr. Robinson.
I know that your graph doesn't show it and it just says 65 and older.
Is there a point at which the percentage, where, at what age trans does the percentages
of older workers begin to peel downward as people stop working even if they are past
65?
Yeah, through the chair, Representative Sadler, it's an interesting question.
In the article, we talk about the biggest number of these workers are 68, and then it does drop off.
And as I say that, I want the median, because it is far more likely that the
biggest numbers is 66, then the next high is 67.
But we do note in the articles that it drops off
quite noticeably when you get into the 70s. So it's their early 65 plus people mostly.
So the next slide shows just how, well, a few things.
The other two age groups, the all-resident workers combined,
about the same number relative to 2003 now,
14 to 17-year-olds, they're slightly fewer of them now
than there were going back a couple of decades,
but the number of 65,
the percentage, no no,
the numbers of 60 plus workers has gone up 350%,
from around 5,000 to pushing 20, 000.
And the reason for that is not terribly surprising.
And in fact, I'll jump to the next slide to make that point partly.
And then the the Next one maybe even better.
That we just have a lot more 65 plus people.
And who are those people?
They're the baby movers.
And they've always bullied.
The data, the numbers, as they moved through, they changed things.
And just for anyone who doesn't remember, baby boomers defined is 46,
people born from 46 to 64.
So the youngest of them are now,
they'll turn 62 this year.
So most of the have moved
through their prime working age years.
And there's lots of interesting patterns in our population estimates and projections relative
to the baby boomers and then also relative to their children, the echo boomer, they had
a disproportionately large number of children as well.
And that's actually the biggest group of Alaskans by age right now,
the children of the Baby Boomers.
By region, the places with higher percentage of 65 plus population also have higher percentages
of 60 plus workers.
You see that most obviously in Southeast, North Slope is kind of interesting on the other
side of things.
Fairly few as a percentage, people 65 and older and fairly few, as the percentage workers
Representative work for you excuse me
Thank you through the chair. I'm curious is in the population on the North Slope. That's being counted. Does that include industry workers?
Representative freer through. The chair that
includes
So the share of workers it's everyone who works in that region now not where they live where? They work. So yes, it would include
Matsu people it would include
Thank you
Representative column. Thank You chair through the chair. So
You mentioned the youth kind of the sectors that they work in is there certain sectors
That the seniors are working because you always hear the lab the boomers are the caregivers, right? Yeah, maybe sitters
Yeah
No, representative column through The chair
Yes, that's the second highest number is health care the biggest and I need to
check myself on this to make sure, but it's school teachers,
healthcare workers are the biggest numbers.
And local government, when you see that,
you kind of maybe wonder what it is all about
until you remember that it was schoolteachers.
And yeah, healthcare, and then after that
trying to think of what retail.
There are also a lot of retail, especially for female, 65 plus.
So kind marginally attached, a little extra money.
I have a question, Mr. Robinson, I'm curious, when it comes to the senior population, is
there any correlation with the increase of the cost of living in Alaska that might be
a contributing factor or is it more like the Silver Tsunami effect?
Well, Coach, our whole one thing we talk about in the article, a little bit related
Explaining why the rate of participation of 65 plus has gone down a little bit is because the economy has been quite friendly to them.
Stock market, housing equity have both gone up a lot, so older workers.
were able to retire a little more than they might have during covid and we talk about retirement
being sticky so if you if u can afford to stay retired most people do your question is interesting
in more recent periods because the high inflation years came after covad very high
Examples of people who had to go back to work because of how high inflation was especially on a fixed income
But it's a little too early for us to be able to see that in the data
Representative Sadler
Thank you, through the chair.
If Mr. Robinson, I'm surprised and pleased,
I guess I see such few slides, but I thought,
oh, you may see, can you give us some idea
of what share of the entire state wages earned
are represented by teens and older Alaskans?
How important is that to the economy?
I think it's kind of, the overall message
of our presentation.
Through the Chair,
I am glad you asked that Representative Sadler
because
It's important not to exaggerate their importance combined.
They only make up 10% of the total resident workforce.
So three, go ahead.
No, not in terms of numbers, but in comes of wage.
Correct, and I was going to get to that next.
And we talked about the youth workers, they make very little.
If we annualize it about $8,000 a year, that's about what?
total earnings would be about 60,000, so they would
be a small percentage.
The older workers are slightly, they make slightly
less than average, their total wage would
be 7, 8%, 6, 7 somewhere in that range.
Their total numbers represent 10%,
but their wages would
be smaller because both, and especially the youth,
make slight less of average for wages.
So is there a
an all-in percentage total of these two cohorts the oldest in the youngest there
Through the chair representative settler there we could calculate that and if you'd like we can get that to you
It would I would you know by that measure put it at 6%
Thank You mr. Robinson
And I think this is probably my last slide.
So, and this just to kind of, if you're math people,
you are wondering what's happening with the other group
and a little bit to Representative Sadler's point,
the importance to the economy,
the our working age population
has consistently shrunk over this period.
And you see from 2015 to 2025,
we're talking, what, 30?
32, 33,000 fewer working age people.
So one thing not to conclude from this.
Is that working age people are working at lower rates that they're staying home
They're not working they are playing video games or whatever else in fact this working-age population is working
It's slightly higher rates and the data is a little fuzzy because of the shutdown and some other things
But it's just that there are fewer of them in Alaska so and related to this I'll make one small point
Partly, again, because there are fewer Alaskans of working age, the percent of non-resident
workers in our economy is going up.
So we'll hit a 30-year high point.
We're going to release a report soon for 2024, and it'll show that we're at 22.9 percent
of all workers, all people who worked in Alaska during 2024 were nonresidents.
Representative Sadler followed by a representative care through the chair
You and I apologize if your slides are gonna present to this in the future
But how do we how we compare with the rest of the the nation with?
proportion of older younger workers
to other
Haven't hearties. Yeah through. The chair representative Sadlar. It's it we
are fortunate in Alaska to have the ability to put ages with our workers, age and gender both,
and we can do that through matching to the permanent fund dividend application file.
So other states don't have that source of information.
the closest tools they would have would be DMV records or voter records,
both of which are way less comprehensive than the PFD application file.
So, which is not to say there wouldn't be data from the Census Bureau or someone else.
We are, although we've had that big increase of senior...
Alaskans, we are still relatively young compared to other states, because when older people
retire, they tend to want warmer places to stay, or birth rates.
So, Alaska and Utah, quite often, are the youngest states.
Utah because of high birth rate, Alaska because our retired people tend
to leave at higher rates than other States.
So that's a partial answer.
Representative carrick
Thank you. Thanks for being here mr. Robinson. You have mentioned the kind of annualized earnings for the youth and senior population
What's for comparison the annualize earnings? For this working age population? Yeah, it's around
$60,000 a year. Yeah
And that's resident, so that is assuming some things about working all four quarters.
People who fish or work tourism or something else, they don't work all for quarters,
so on that assumption that if you worked all 4 quarters?
Another question.
Yeah, as a separate question, I'm also curious about,
kind of post-COVID period of time in the public sector and and maybe if you
could opine I guess on who fills those public-sector jobs. Do we see a higher
increase in seniors and youth especially seniors filling those
public sectors jobs compared to pre-covid? Through the Chair, Representative
First very broadly there's a data set called the Jolt's job opening labor turnover survey, and it showed
really high
numbers of openings in Alaska and the country
Post-COVID that has since come down
Hiring has come, down that the labor market has cooled
Earlier this week specific to your question about state government
tell you a short story, a couple of people in our department were talking about, from
last year to this, the number of applicants has gone way up.
That's not data that we would ever publish.
So the Number of Applicants is interesting, but not really readily available.
confirms that the number of openings relative to the
number unemployed people has kind of normalized.
So that really intense hunger for workers that we had a
few years ago has definitely eased.
And that was one of the reasons I was interested to hear
these stories of applicants for state positions that just
happened to be in my department had gone way up.
um exploration of that with the understanding that that the number of applicants is not a
data set that's the state may have that uh they should have the personnel people but we don't
i think that is my last slide it is and i'd be glad to answer any other questions or
Thank you through the chair as kind of a rule of thumb, which I established as our standard here in general in labor economics is
Having a large number of older and younger workers considered a good reflection of the in the health of economy or bad or
Depends or is it mixed? Yeah
Sadler through to the Chair
Any time you're talking labor force participation it's important and and
The data does this to a degree.
Important to separate why people are working
to the extent you can.
And when you see a 70-year-old doctor still working,
you kind of can, and we have some data
of the occupation who's working.
You probably safely assume that they're working
because they want to.
If you're standing all day in a grocery store,
you probably make the other assumption that you are working
because you have to.
And generally, we don't think in terms of good, bad,
healthy, unhealthy.
Whatever like the meteorologist we say what the weather is and it depends on what you want if you're a senior advocate
You you'd probably want employers to be open to hiring senior workers
But you also want you know retirement with dignity and some other things too, so that's a long non-answer
Well, I appreciate that long not answer cuz that was a question that I was gonna ask
Are there any other questions from the committee?
Representative Colum.
Thank you, Chair, through the Chair.
Do you have any idea of what the unemployment rate
or maybe who's receiving unemployment benefits
in this working age population?
Representative Calum,
through The Chair?
Yes, we have pretty detailed information
on who files for unemployment insurance, including age.
So would you be interested in the 65 plus?
Claimments for unemployment insurance. Um, I'm mostly interested about the working age group. Okay. Yeah
I will I'll send the claims by age. If that's okay, that'd be great. Yep. Thank you
Thank You, mr. Robinson. And yeah, we'll I feel rescinded to the committee. We'll definitely make sure that okay all the all committee members
receive it
All right, are there further questions from the Committee?
Seeing none thank you so much mr. Robinson really appreciate it
We will now turn to our invited speakers
We have March Stone King with the associate the Associate State Director for advocacy with AARP Alaskan
I believe she is available through teams
Okay
Miss Stone king, thank You so Much for Joining us, please put your name on the record and begin your testimony
Pochair Hall. I'm Marge Stone King advocacy director for AARP Alaska and I
appreciate the opportunity for aARP to comment on this report of older
Alaskans in the workforce. So workers age 65 and older have become the fastest
growing segment of the labor force in recent decades across the country.
According to a 2023 US Bureau of Labor Statistics study, nearly half of individuals
born between 1946 and 1960 expect to work past age 70 or do not plan to retire at all.
In recent years, the resilience of older workers has been especially notable with many actively
seeking new job opportunities or career changes.
According to an AARP recent survey, approximately 24% of workers aged 50 and above planned to
change jobs in 2025, driven both by financial needs amid rising living costs and a desire
for meaningful or flexible work arrangements.
Some people choose to keep working to remain engaged, challenged, and fulfilled,
and others simply are not financially prepared to retire.
With advancements in medicine and living standards, someone at age 60 can realistically expect
to live at least another 20 years, meaning their retirement savings must last for decades.
When you factor in rising costs of living in the broader retirement crisis in America,
it becomes clear that reaching a traditional retirement at aged 65 is far more challenging
than ever before.
at the typical jobs of 65 and up Alaskans,
compared by gender on page seven in the trends report.
You'll see a notable difference between occupation and average pay.
We know that women still today earn less than men for the same experience
in this same job. That lower pay also translates into
Add to that that women tend to live longer than men, make up the majority of unpaid family caregivers and are more likely to be single in their senior years and you see the writing on the wall for older Alaskan women needing to work, often in low paid jobs like retail and caregiving as we see in the labor report.
workforce does offer tangible benefits to the workplace by broadening perspectives leading
to increased innovation and creativity. And this is especially important given the global rise in
the number of older workers and the fact that age doesn't inherently limit one's ability to
In the 2023 AARP global employee survey, we found increased levels of job satisfaction
for both older and younger workers who work in multi-generational environments.
However, negative stereotypes and outdated assumptions mean that older workers and job
seekers are often treated unfairly.
Contrary to common misperceptions, older workers can offer many benefits to employers
as mentioned.
An experienced worker brings expertise, maturity, and perspective to a workplace.
Employers have said that older workers are more reliable and accurate in their work and
often have better social skills.
The main barrier to employment for older workers is age discrimination.
During the hiring process and in the workplace.
According to AARP,
research 90% of workers age 50 and up
believe that age
discrimination against older
workers are common in
the work place today.
And 64%
of older
workers have seen
or experienced age
discriminations.
Those numbers are
even higher
for
black workers
50 and up. Older workers also continue to face significant challenges such as long-term
unemployment and, as I mentioned, age discrimination.
Older worker should be valued members of our workforce. They bring years of professional
and personal experience, and many have the critical attributes that any employer is looking
Addressing age-related barriers to employment, such as age discrimination, is crucial to ensure that older Americans can remain in the workforce or return to it if necessary or desired.
Age discrimination also prevents us from addressing labor shortages, keeping skilled, qualified, and eager workers' sidelines.
By age as as mr. Robinson mentioned and was mentioned was requested by the committee
And that is my testimony. Thank you
Thank you, Miss Stone King. Are there questions from the committee? Representative Sadler followed by co-chair fields.
Thank You. Thank the show. First, Ms. Stone king of a short observation of my question
I always feel honored bound to mention when I hear about the wage disparity between the genders that the other factors like years and service or
Other factors other than simply gender which account for that difference, but that's just an editorial comment. Don't wish to engage in a debate
So my real question is
You make an eloquent case for the value that older workers bring to the workforce.
What states or what sectors in Alaska best take advantage of those intrinsic advantages
of older worker?
What industry is getting the most benefit from older workers?
I'm afraid I don't have any data to address that question, but it is a good question.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Stonking.
Coach airfields.
Thank You.
Through the chair, I was curious, Miss Stoning, if you have anecdotal evidence or Alaska specific
statistics that try to give us insight into whether most Alaskans working longer are doing
so out of choice versus necessity.
Thank.
Anecdotally, we hear both, certainly those who return to the workforce versus continue
in the work force tend to be those that need to go back to work.
Okay, let's go follow up.
One area of work that you mentioned, which is family care.
So this committee, I think, passed a bill of representative Proxxas.
which is a bill that's designed to help make sure caregiving is
a job at which someone can support themselves. I think it's a great bill.
I didn't know if you had more thoughts on
this growing sector which has taken care of each other.
I had not thought about that being a primary
area where older Alaskans work but would appreciate
more insight and guidance from AARP to think about.
how that is a sustainable, financially sustainable job because it is, I think, an increasingly
important one with demographic change. Thank you.
Thank You. Did you want me to respond? Sure. If you have more details now or if you don't,
you can always follow up later. Thanks. I'll follow-up.
Thank
you, that's a better option.
Thank You mr. Stone. Oh, we have another question from representative Saturday. Thank you
Miss Duncan
We heard much Robinson's presentation on the trends article is there anything in there that you think we should pay special attention to it
Or was it surprised you in this report of the studies?
I didn't focus on the youth data, I will admit.
There was nothing in the senior data that really surprised me.
Thank you for the question.
Seeing no other questions from the committee,
thank you very much, Ms. Stone King, for your testimony.
Next up, we have Sean Schubert,
who's the career and college resources coordinator
for King Tech High School in Anchorage.
Mr. Schuhbert please put yourself on record and begin your
testimony
Certainly. My name is Sean Schubert. I am the workforce development coordinator for the King Tech High School in Anchorage School District.
And first of all, I'd like to thank everybody for this opportunity to speak with you about a passionate mind that is important to all of us here in Alaska.
I've had the pleasure of helping young Alaskan seek employment and continued education and
training for 30 years. I'm having work for Job Corps, the Alaska Department of Labor's
Youth Job Center, and currently I am working with the Anchorage School District at King
Tech High School. King Tech is a career technical education school where we pride ourselves
on preparing new adults, tend to the workforce confidently and confidently through industry
validated classroom instruction, job shadows, internships and work experience.
And I'll be honest with you, it's hard to describe the exact time rush I get.
Every time a student walks into my office to announce, I got the job.
or not the internship, or whatever it might have been.
And to see the lightness of their step,
but also the new worries in their eyes
about expected performance from this new challenge.
It can be intoxicating for all of us in all the right ways.
And I get to say this again and again, and every day.
In fact, today, I had six young men and young women come in
and form a day that they just were hired by Carlisle
to be paid interns for the balance of the semester,
the way they can launch their careers as diesel technicians.
So it's wonderful.
And I, like many of you, started my work life the same way at a very young age, part-time
jobs.
I worked at the bakery, fast food, construction, and then I work in the medical records office.
And in each place, I was able to learn different skill sets and apply those skills in different
ways.
And these formative experiences helped me to better understand workplace expectations
and grow my own sense of work ethic and worth.
While those experiences occurred 40 years ago, the scene could be set of employment
I'm even more important for Alaska, helping young adults explore the world of work can
help them want to stay in Alaska and curve out negative net migration out of the state,
which pinches our economy into a smaller pool each year.
We have challenged to overcome with all this, of course, though.
Young people face, just like our elderly workers as well,
they face challenges from the markets.
Businesses have age restrictions.
You have to be 18 or older to work in a lot of different places.
And that's typically a result of insurance demands.
If we could help businesses by incentivizing hiring in adults who are under the HVAC team
and helping them with financial benefits to help offset those increased insurance
costs, companies can help develop our emerging workforce while also meeting their entry-level
employment needs.
We have also had success in helping businesses explore unpaid internships for which students
liability needs are covered by the Anchorage School District, allowing students to the
opportunity to gain experience and apply the skills they've learned in one of our
career technical education classrooms. There are other industries like transportation
required applicants to have driver's licenses, which is sometimes beyond the capabilities of
It could be a lack of a vehicle, an ability to pay for the driving school or other barriers,
but not having that driver's license can disrupt those work plans.
Funding from the state to school districts to help cover the cost of instructors, designated
vehicles, and insurance for school sponsored driving and education would really help in
a lot of those regards.
And understanding that education plays a significant role in overcoming these barriers and can
properly funding initiatives that will help young adults go to work,
helps businesses maintain staffing levels,
contributes to graduation rates by connecting the classrooms to the office or the shop.
And curves are out migration problem by anchoring young Atlascans to Alaska.
We're committed to helping these young men and young women go work
and we're looking for any resources that we can avail ourselves of
to help these women overcome these challenges.
Thank you. I'm willing to take any questions.
Thank you, Mr. Schuber. It looks like we have a question from Representative Sadler. Thank
you. Through the chair, what is considered a good first job for Alaska youth? You mentioned
that you did work bakery, fast food kind of thing. In our economy, but we
have going on,
what's considered the good First job to set a young person on a
good trajectory for a
Thank you so much. That's exactly the last part of your question is probably the most important part
of it. It's not just a matter of finding the right job, like what constitutes a good job
but what constitute a great job based upon the trajectory that they want to follow to be able
to get into. So that's the first question I ask students when they come in looking for a job with
me is, okay great, I can help you find work but rather than just finding a jobs, let's find a
job that can contribute to that next step to the growth point that you're seeking. And so I asked
into my office today. He really wants to do an automotive. That's his thing.
He's only 16. So we started talking about what are the jobs that he can get
that maybe might be tangential type of opportunities. We talked about places
like Napa and AutoZone and O'Reilly's where he
can be connected to the industry without actually working in a shop where
that's the age requirement might something that would be challenging for
him to be able to get those jobs. It really depends on the individual.
What I always tell people, I try to warn students, and sometimes this is a challenge.
They want to get the biggest bang for their time,
so they want get to the greatest wage.
But I always tell them that, you know,
the thing to consider beyond wage is the experience
and how that experience is going to contribute to next steps.
And I have, I try to encourage them to start thinking that way
rather than just thinking,
how much money can I put in my pocket?
I've got students who work in construction,
I got student who worked in retail,
I get students to work and healthcare,
I'm got, students working in every industry, tourism,
restaurants, we've have partnerships with businesses
clamoring for more people and we're trying to be creative in helping meet
those staffing needs for those businesses. So really I mean I wish I could give you
a more definitive answer but the the best entry-level job is based upon the
individual.
Hi, follow-up.
Hi and follow up.
Thank you, man.
Sure.
And in this committee room, in the last year or two, we debated and approved and the inter-legislature
approved, authorizing younger people to work in license establishments and bars and clubs
and so forth.
I understand that King has a good hospitality cooking presentation program.
Has your curriculum and how you prepare young people envision or address the possibility
of early jobs for young men being in bars license announcements?
Is that something you're working in your curricula now?
Thank you. Yes, and I appreciate the follow-up question. We do but we do that
through partnerships with those businesses. I'll give you an example.
We have a partnership with the Alaska Hospitality Foundation and what we've
done this semester and this
semester I have five students who are out working in places like the 49th
State at Captain Cook at Spinar Roadhouse, all of which serve alcohol and
those types of establishments. And so what
There are boundaries that you have to abide by and you
have respect and that includes certain places in a restaurant where
they're allowed to be and then we have the businesses
reinforce that information and reinforce those policies and help those young
young men and young women grow skills in the areas where they can
that way they could develop those skills and when they are ready to move
into those next steps after they hit 21 then they
are to make that happen. So what we do is we rely on industry
While our chef is an amazing person, he can't know everything and he
can have access to everything, so we partner with industry to let them be the
experts to train our students. And a brief follow-up.
And this may sound pick and I hope it's not. So what you partner
with the Alaska Hospitality Association is at the formal limit because I
understand there is the Arba and there's Char, but is that a different
organization you're speaking of or are you speaking kind of informally?
Yeah, so Alaska Hospital and Foundation is a nonprofit here in town and they just help
coordinate, they help coordinate activities at businesses.
So here I'll give you an example.
So with this current relationship, I've got five students out working as paid interns.
So they're getting paid and also collecting high school credit at the same time.
Going to these industries and these businesses and getting that experience.
And part of this opportunity that these business has created is not just the experience but
these young men and women continue their education by providing a scholarship to each of them
after they've graduated and with the intent here is they can attend UAA's culinary arts program
for nothing. The scholarship is going to completely pay 100% of that associate degree
and so that's the partnership there. With Char we've used Char in the past with Serve Safe
and helping students be able to get their the different credentials to be
a supervisory function to it so many of our senior students are able to pursue that as well as like a pro-start credential.
Good, thank you.
I have a question.
Representative Cologne.
Yeah, so Mr. Schubert, is that right?
Yes.
So...
I've hired and managed a lot of teenage workers because I worked a
lot retail. And some of the issues is around the labor laws
around minors. So they can only work so long. The shifts, the
breaks, they cannot operate equipment. They can't work past
Yeah, I'm not saying those are bad, but I think it's sometimes it is a challenge to get
businesses to open that door to a minor because on top of the fact that most of them are going to
school and so they can only work evenings, some weekends or whatever. So it feels like there
a lot of youth are being funneled into the hospitality and retail sector because that's
being really restrictive or do you think that businesses are able to work around some of those
things like your example for a kid that wants to do mechanic you know auto work i think napa's
great i mean napas basically retail um but a minor is not going to be able operate any equipment
in an automotive shop i they can't even go into a retail warehouse um because it's not safe so
kind of restrict what businesses could actually have a youth in their business.
Thank you so much for the question. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this.
And so sometimes it requires being creative and I'll give you an example of the construction industry.
So this past summer I had I believe 17 young men and young women go to work in construction
industry and one of them was over the age of 18.
So it was very restrictive in what they can and can't do.
In fact, some businesses can even hire them until they hit 18
because of insurance restrictions.
So what we did in this situation here is we had them hired
with these companies over the summer as unpaid interns.
And so they go to work for these company and they got this amazing experience.
You can only, as an unpaid intern, you can work 60 hours.
So each of them was able to worked 60 hour.
And then this was not our idea.
This was actually the business.
This is Alaska Home Veterans Association.
you know, we can't pay them. We can put them on the books, but we
can award them a scholarship.
at the end of their work time and so that's what they did. So at
the the ended of the summer we had a ceremony at King Tech High School
and the businesses came in and Alaska Holper Association
awarded each one of those students of a scholarship of
$16 an hour times 60 hours and each of them got that one.
So if somebody if a student goes to work as an unpaid intern for some of these
businesses they can say under the school district and what ends up
happening is we cover the liability insurance for those
absolutely not. I mean, there are some places, it doesn't matter what's going
on with that one. They can't turn the wrench, they can, you know, pull the
blowtorch to be able to do well. But we try to get creative in helping
some of these businesses meet that.
I've got students working in construction, internships right now, in fact.
I got two working for Tundra telecommunications. Now they're 18, so
they were able do this, but one of them started out at 17 and the company, what
they did is they just really worked with their insurance provider and figured out
could or could not do and then they just assigned them to a staff member who
assured that their students were kept safe and weren't doing that and so as
a result this young man, his name's Cole, he worked all last summer and
then this school year for the second semester he's now working as a paid
intern for them again launching his career. Yeah so it's sometimes it
restrictive but sometimes with a little creative approach you can come up with
Thank you, Mr. Shuler. And I have a question. Earlier, you were mentioning just how students
were more concerned about maybe getting money in their pocket. I'm curious to know what are
they learning about financial literacy? Thank You so much for asking that question, so
We have at King Tech, we do things a little bit differently.
Yes, yes,
we are a high school now, but we're definitely out of traditional high
school and many of our students go through financial math in our math class.
And so our instructor up there does a really good job of helping people
understand taxes, retirement, investments, how to stretch the dollar and understand
that the difference between buying bulk as well as as opposed to buying
individual items. And
to make sure that people understand how exactly they can value the income that
they're able to Make for themselves. And then we talked a little bit about that
myself as well when we talk about how I'm saving for those next steps whether
it's college or trade school or apprenticeship or whatever else. Most
of these require some sort of financial investment on their part and so we put
together a plan to ensure that they are putting away X number of dollars out of
their paychecks that way they'll have something to lean on in the future.
I'm not seeing additional questions from the committee.
Thank you very much for your testimony Mr. Schubert, we appreciate it.
We also have staff from The Department of Labor and Workforce Development available here including Commissioner Munoz.
Thank You very Much for you and your staff for being here.
We appreciate It.
Are there any questions on this topic for the commissioner or the department of labor in general?
Not seeing any from the committee, okay.
Well, that concludes the presentation about youth and seniors in the workforce.
Thank you all to all of our presenters for being here today.
Before we wrap up, I'd like to set amendment deadlines for two bills that have come before the Committee.
For HB 243 by Representative Carrick on Barber's Hairdresses and
For HDR 20 by Representative Nelson on apprenticeships for veterans the deadline will be Wednesday February 4th at 3 p.m.
That concludes our business for today.
We canceled the bill hearing for HB 249 and we will reschedule that for a later date.
Please remember to come back here committee members at 430 for the first meeting of the finance subcommittee.
The meeting for the meeting schedule for this Friday, January 30th is canceled.
And I'd like to express an extra special thank you to our committee aid for today.
Evan Anderson who's pinching for my committee aide who was unable to be here today, so thank
you.
With that, this meeting is adjourned at 406 PM.