State's jobless rate down
Associated Press
The statewide unemployment rate continued its slow decline in February, the third consecutive month the number of jobless in Hawai'i has dropped since November, when the number of people unemployed because of the Sept. 11 attacks peaked, state labor officials said yesterday.
The unemployment rate for February was 4.7 percent, compared with 4.8 percent in January, the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations said.
Hawai'i's unemployment rate for February 2001 was 4.1 percent.
The overall unemployment rate for the nation in February was 6.1 percent, down from 6.3 percent in January.
The state labor department said there were 574,700 employed in Hawai'i in February, while 28,600 were unemployed.
The unemployment rate for each island varied, although O'ahu's rate for February was unchanged from January at 4.4 percent.
The Big Island unemployment rate fell 0.2 percent to 5.6 percent in February, but Maui's rate rose 0.2 percent to 5.1 percent.
Kaua'i's unemployment rate also rose slightly to 6.5 percent in February, the highest in the state, from 6.3 percent in January. The unemployment rate for the Garden Isle in February 2001 was 7 percent.
Despite Moloka'i's rate falling just 0.1 percent to 5.2 percent, it was a marked improvement over the unemployment rate on the Friendly Island in February 2001, when it stood at 15.6 percent, according to the labor department.
Lana'i's unemployment rate fell 1.1 percent in February to 3.6 percent.
The state's unemployment rate hit a high of 5.5 percent in November, the highest rate in two years.
Meanwhile, the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism said preliminary figures show that while individual spending per visitor increased in January from $172 per day last year to $184 per day this year, overall spending was down 7.2 percent compared with last year because of a decline in visitor days.
