Hawai'i to add jobs; skilled applicants scarcer
By Susan Hooper
Advertiser Staff Writer
As Hawai'i's economy continues to improve in 2003, many tourism jobs lost after 9/11 are likely to be restored and other sectors may see new-job creation, analysts say.
Advertiser library photo • Jan. 25, 2002
But the positions added in the year ahead will raise the state's job total just 1.2 percent above 2001 levels, said Pearl Imada Iboshi, economic research administrator with the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism.
Job seeker Linda Morishita gives Oahu Worklinks' Ruel Reyes her employment information to enter into an employment database that matches job seekers with openings.
State analysts are projecting a 1.6 percent increase in jobs statewide in 2003 over this year, Imada Iboshi said, to 567,200 jobs. That offsets a 0.5 percent decline in jobs this year compared to 2001, she said.
In the tourism-related areas of transportation, retail and hotels, jobs added next year likely will be replacements for the thousands lost after the attacks and ensuing drop in business, she said. But other sectors of the economy, including construction, health and business services, are expected to build on gains made in 2002, she said.
"We are seeing building permits up in 2002, so we would expect construction to continue to grow in 2003," Imada Iboshi said. New information-technology jobs are likely to boost growth in business services, a sector that includes engineers, architects and lawyers, she said.
Growth in the construction industry will be powered by residential work — both new-building and remodeling, said Craig Watase, 2002 president of the Building Industry Association of Hawaii. Low interest rates and home-building tax credits passed by the state Legislature in its special session after 9/11 have sharpened interest in residential construction, he said.
"Your major land developers for residential are building as fast as they can," he said.
Unlike the late 1980s and early 1990s, when huge government and private-sector development projects dominated construction, "now you have consumers carrying the construction industry," said Watase, who also is president of Mark Development, a Kaimuki developer of government-assisted housing.
The flurry of construction projects may be slowed by a problem that's troublesome in Honolulu but even worse on the Neighbor Islands, Watase said: a shortage of skilled labor.
During the construction slump of the 1990s, many skilled trades people left the Islands for work on the Mainland. "We still are not employing at the levels we used to," he said.
The growing shortage of workers is reflected in the state's unemployment rate, which dropped more than a full percentage point from October 2001 to October 2002, to 4.0 percent, according to the state labor department.
By comparison, the national jobless rate in October of this year was 5.3 percent, up 0.3 percentage points from October 2001.
As Hawai'i businesses recover from the effects of 9/11 and look for workers to replace those they laid off, shortages of qualified employees are also hitting nonconstruction sectors, said Emy Yamauchi-Wong, manager of clerical staffing for Altres Inc., a Honolulu employment agency.
She, too, expects 2003 to be a recovery year for employment, with formerly hesitant employers ready to take on new workers, both temporary and permanent.
"Yet the challenge still is the demand for good, qualified people," she said. "I think people are still leaving the Islands for higher pay or better job opportunities."
