Even on a slow early February day, Circular clothing boutique on Sixth Avenue in Downtown Anchorage is hopping with customers. Kim Stalder, the owner, attends each one personally. For regulars, she suggests bargains they might like; for first timers, she recommends a local tailor who can alter a garment. The name of the shop indicates Stalder’s ecological consciousness, and her clientele is willing to pay a premium for apparel that lasts a lifetime and won’t end up in the waste stream.
With only one paid associate, Stalder’s business might seem lonely, especially compared to the state’s largest companies with hundreds or thousands of workers on the payroll. Yet she is part of an army of retail salespersons, the single most common occupation in the state, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Stalder isn’t surprised. “There are a lot of folks working at jobs like this,” she observes, whether selling clothes, shoes, furniture, cars, art, hunting and fishing gear, or whatever. A handful of the Corporate 100 have workforces made largely of retail salespersons, but most people in this category are scattered among small businesses like Circular.
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Several occupations, taken together, outnumber the largest employers in the Corporate 100. According to the latest BLS report from May 2023, at least ten occupations had more than the 4,500 Alaskans working for perennial chart-topper Providence Alaska…