Alaska Seafood Industry Faces Challenges Beyond Harvest Cuts: Its Workforce

The Alaskan seafood industry is going through a rough time, apart from the salmon stock decline, their workforce is aging and there is no new influx of young people. This is partly because of the high cost of equipment, boats and permit. Another reason is the shortage of workers in a processing plant.

The seafood industry is heavily dependent on processing, as they can only catch as much as the processing plants can process. The seafood industry is shifting from an old, unskilled and non-technical skill-based labor to the technical and skill-based labor. This is a big issue, because the state isn’t offering any training program to gain these skills, hence the decline of industry.

A survey has been carried out, in which 40 plant managers from 20 different companies showed a significant interest towards the training opportunities for careers related to the seafood. It was established that the majority of the people wanted more training opportunities, not only for the certain skills related to the seafood industry, but also the supervisory skills, conflict management skills etc. Currently, the companies are training their own workers, this adds to the cost of the operation and the skills aren’t universal but just for that specific company. Having more opportunities will attract more young people to make a career out of it. To make this an even more attractive proposition, the training institutes and high schools can work with the seafood industry and the students can do their internships there to develop their interests and skills.

The process is a complex one and can take a lot of time and effort. To make this integration easier, an efficient way the authorities and the seafood industry can implement, is the use of Seafood ERP. Seafood processors, seafood packers and shippers will be able to integrate the new systems with the new workforce efficiently with the use of Seafood ERP.

Kodiak is the hub of the seafood industry and so far, things haven’t been ideal, the huge companies are either closing their business or are reduced. It is due to many reasons, but mainly due to the lack of technical labor and technical processing. Seafood processors can incorporate the seafood ERP, this way they can help the industry grow again by transitioning into the future seafood industry efficiently. Seafood processors are going through a hard time in Alaska, with the help of more technical labor and technical processing plants, they can get back on their feet and the seafood ERP can assist the seafood industry in achieving this goal.