JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The Trump administration is pressuring federal workers to resign. Most federal workers - about 80% - live outside the Washington, D.C., area, and, far from the beltway, Alaska is one of the states with the highest percentage of federal employees in its workforce. Some economists say losing federal jobs there could have a profound effect statewide. Alaska Public Media's Liz Ruskin reports.
LIZ RUSKIN, BYLINE: David Traver is the chief steward for a union representing hundreds of workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Alaska, many of them health care workers. He says the threat of job cuts is creating anxiety.
DAVID TRAVER: We've all gone there and dedicated our lives to serving our veterans because we wanted to give back. And right now, what's happening is chilling.
RUSKIN: About 15,000 federal employees live in Alaska, which is a lot for its small population. Many think of the oil industry as the biggest contributor to the state's economy, but the latest report from the State Department of Labor shows that's not so. The federal government employs almost twice as many Alaskans as the oil and gas industry does.
NEAL FRIED: You know, the federal government is our No.1 industry.
RUSKIN: Neal Fried is a retired state labor economist. He says federal jobs pay well, and losing them would reverberate through Alaska's economy.
FRIED: We should be watching this really closely. And it's kind of like, I suspect, the way people in Detroit watch what's happening in the auto industry.
RUSKIN: University of Alaska Anchorage economics professor Kevin Berry says federal employees also support private-sector jobs as they spend their paychecks and through the services they provide that advance oil and mining projects.
KEVIN BERRY: Research development in general requires people to answer the phone and help move permitting processes forward and get things done. So federal funding is not only large in the amount of money that it directly brings into the state but the amount of activity that it enables.
RUSKIN: Traver, the union steward at the VA, is urging his members not to take the Trump administration's deferred resignation offer.
TRAVER: I can tell you my phone has not stopped ringing with staff that are scared. We have staff drafting their resumes, looking for work elsewhere - nurses, providers.
RUSKIN: It's not clear how many Alaskans have already offered their resignations or if the administration will cut positions to shrink the workforce there. For NPR News, I'm Liz Ruskin.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.