Posted on: Sunday, April 24, 2005

'Help wanted' signs go ignored

By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Neighbor Island Editor

University of Hawai'i engineering student Michael Bicoy already has a job lined up when he graduates in a few weeks, and it's not with a county agency, even though dozens of engineering positions are open on Maui, O'ahu, Kaua'i and the Big Island.

"I didn't even think about that because I know they're not going to pay enough. Sorry, but I want to get paid," said the 22-year-old senior from 'Ewa Beach. Bicoy instead will work at Pearl Harbor, where he'll get a generous cost of living allowance in addition to his salary.

Unable to compete with private and federal employers, counties across the state have put out the "help wanted" sign in an attempt to fill hundreds of job vacancies ranging from clerks and lifeguards to police officers and planners.

The situation is worsened by a statewide unemployment rate of only 2.8 percent, and despite being able to offer stable employment and good benefits, county recruiters are going to unprecedented lengths to attract applicants. Residency requirements are being waived and employment qualifications downgraded, thousands of dollars are being spent on advertising and officials from Maui and the Big Island are regularly on the road at job fairs.

Recruiters rev up

Meanwhile, the public is feeling the impact of understaffed government agencies through longer waits and the periodic closing of swimming pools and satellite offices.

"We're doing a whole number of things we never had to do before because we had applicants. Now it's like we have to go out and offer tasty bait," said Gabriella Cabanas, who supervises recruitment and testing for the Hawai'i County Department of Civil Service. She said the county, which employs 2,200, is actively recruiting for 85 vacancies but has many others as well.

Maui County, with approximately the same number of workers, has 215 vacancies. Lance Hiromoto, deputy director of the county Department of Personnel, said his agency has been advertising in trade magazines, and began offering examinations on weekends to make it more convenient for working people to seek county employment.

He said counties also are no longer placing deadlines on job postings. Instead, they are running continuous recruitments to establish a steady flow of applicants. "We used to do a one-time recruitment and get 300 to 400 people taking the test. Now we only get six to 12 people," he said.

In decades past, county jobs were highly coveted for the security and benefits they offered. This was especially true on the Neighbor Islands, where employment opportunities outside sugar and pineapple plantations were limited.

Robin Tanaka, 56, joined Maui County right after graduating from UH in 1973. At the time, he was considering a teaching job, but decided to go to work for Mayor Elmer Cravalho at the start of a boom period on Maui. "A lot of things were happening in government, and I wanted to be a part of the vision," said Tanaka, who is the director for two senior-citizen centers under the Department of Housing and Human Concerns.

More choices today

Today's college graduates, especially in the professional fields, have far more choices than Tanaka ever did. Engineers and planners with experience at all levels are in high demand throughout the state. The City & County of Honolulu has 39 vacancies out of 110 engineering positions. Some of those openings were created when engineers left to take federal jobs, said Ken Takemoto of the Department of Design and Construction.

"We've been consistently at a one-third vacancy rate among the engineers in the last four years in spite of continuous recruitment of this class. We're at a 35.5 percent vacancy rate this fiscal year alone," he said.

A military and civilian construction boom has been driving up the cost of compensation packages, said Song K. Choi, assistant dean of the College of Engineering at UH-Manoa. "It's a good time to be graduating from an engineering school; there are an abundant number of jobs," he said.

Four or five years ago, Choi said, a civil engineer right out of college could expect to earn between $25,000 and $40,000 a year. Newly minted engineers today are being offered salaries as high as $60,000, he said. By comparison, an entry-level city civil engineering position starts at $36,948.

Choi noted that civil service regulations prevent government from quickly responding to changes in labor market by increasing wages.

"Several years ago, it was not a big problem, but now with the private sector on the upper scale of pay, I think the counties are having a real tough time," he said.

Not enough pay

Workers with other specialized skills are in demand. Two of the nine vacancies in Maui's Real Property Division have gone unfilled for six months to a year because of the difficulty in finding applicants with backgrounds in abstracting and cartographic mapping. "Someone with those skills would be quite valuable in the private sector," said Finance Director Kalbert Young.

He said he has been making arrangements with civil service officials to ease some of the job qualifications.

The vacancies in the Real Property Division are in the back office, and Young said customer service has not been affected, but the openings are taking a toll on employees. "Our other staff is having to fill in for the two positions, and that's creating some morale and personnel issues, like burnout," he said.

Short staffing is affecting service at the Finance Department's Division of Motor Vehicles and Licensing, which has vacancies for counter staff and road-test examiners. The division has been bombarded with complaints from angry customers who report waiting anywhere from 45 minutes to several hours for services.

Positions for pool and beach lifeguards, which also require certification, are numerous. It is not unusual for county pools on Maui and the Big Island to close for the day because of inadequate staffing. "If one person is sick, it closes a pool. It's that tight on staff," said Larry Davis, aquatics program administrator for the Hawai'i County Department of Parks and Recreation. "They're not knocking the doors down to work for us anymore because we don't pay enough."

Finding staff for positions in Kona is especially tough, he said. "With the building boom, our pay is just not that good compared to what construction jobs pay."

In addition to pool lifeguards and water-safety officers at beaches, Davis is looking to hire part-time summer swimming instructors.

"Every year, we start recruiting for instructors earlier and earlier. This year, I have 13 positions, and we may get half that. The lifeguards at the pools teach instead, and that compromises the public. But we do what we can," he said.

Elsewhere in the parks department, a higher-paying parks project manager position has been vacant for at least six months, Cabanas said, and the Department of Environmental Services is looking for a solid waste division chief, along with 15 other postings, most requiring certification and experience.

More career changers

Managers have been hard to hire and keep, she said, because many employees who in the past would have made a lifelong career of working for the county are retiring in their 50s to assume positions in the private sector. This is particularly true for police officers.

The Honolulu Police Department has 419 vacancies for sworn and civilian employees, the Big Island has 55 police openings and Maui has 66. Honolulu police officials estimate they spend $50,000 annually on recruiting, and the Maui Police Department is paying $25,000 for repeated airings of a half-hour recruiting program that debuted last week on statewide television.

About a third of Kaua'i County's 100 vacancies, out a workforce of 1,100, are within the Police Department. County spokeswoman Mary Daubert said officials are comfortable trying to fill open positions on-island and have not had to resort to extraordinary steps to find applicants.

Cabanas, meanwhile, said that one of the things her office has done to encourage job-seekers is to "demystify" the recruitment and examination process.

"Some people are discouraged because they don't know what's involved or they just don't like the idea of taking tests," she said. "I'm telling them to try because they could be with just a group of five persons at a test site."

Hawai'i County also has approached local and nonresident college students to think about becoming lifeguards, for instance. It may not be what they have in mind for a career, but Cabanas is telling them it's a way to get their foot in the county's door for other jobs that may interest them.

Reach Christie Wilson at (808) 244-4880 or cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com.