Fairbanks North Star Borough releases April Community Research Quarterly

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) - April 2022 saw the release of the Fairbanks North Star Borough’s most recent Community Research Quarterly (CRQ).

Since 1978, the borough has prepared this comprehensive guide to the Fairbanks economy every three months. Stephanie Pearson, Community Research Technician said, “Looking at each of those pages and seeing the changes in the data quarter to quarter, year to year, you can really see a picture of our local economy.”

The CRQ gathers statistics from a variety of topics, including “hotel revenues, museum visitors, the local unemployment rates... housing, gas prices, just a whole lot more,” according to Pearson.

She said the local unemployment rate is lower than pre-pandemic levels.

People, businesses and even officials from around the community regularly consume the report according to Pearson. “It helps with decision-making, economic development efforts, grants, investment, analysis, planning, policy... I even have tour bus drivers that carry it in their bus, and they like to refer to the data for the tourists.”

Each edition takes months to prepare, with a number of businesses and markets to survey. “I have to compile this data from many local, state and national sources in order to get all that data, and there’s a lot of editing that goes into this as well,” Pearson said.

Because of the time it takes to compile the data, the April edition of the quarterly covers the period from October to December of 2021.

Pearson told us the last year has seen a number of changes to Fairbanks’ housing situation. “For rentals, the vacancy rate has gone down significantly since the first quarter of 2020,” she said.

As housing prices go, she added, “There are less houses being put on the market, and so there’s an increase in costs that’s been happening, and you can look at the pages and see that progression.”

The quarterly is available online for free, or a physical copy can be picked up at the Juanita Helms Administration Center for $10.

The next edition of the quarterly is expected in July.

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