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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, May 9, 2005

Guard jobs hard to fill in Hawai'i

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

KALAELOA — The state of Hawai'i's economy can be found at the dusty, windy guard station at Kalaeloa Barbers Point Harbor, where Lt. Lester Espinueva supervises two other security officers standing post every day.

Inter-Con Security guards Ron Naumu and Bruno Lat work the gate at Kalaeloa Barbers Point Harbor. The low take-home wages — about $600 for two weeks of full-time work — makes it tough to get by for many Hawai'i security guards and their families.

Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

Espinueva works 40 hours, Monday through Friday, at Kalaeloa for Inter-Con Security, then pulls back-to-back, eight-hour shifts on Saturdays and Sundays for two other security companies — adding up to another 32 hours.

Espinueva's take-home pay for 72 hours of work each week totals only $2,400 per month.

"It's hard," said Espinueva, 49. "My wife's getting mad already."

As Hawai'i last month recorded a 2.8 percent unemployment rate — the lowest in 14 years — to once again lead the nation, the Islands' security guard industry symbolizes the pressures of businesses scrambling to hire enough workers while offering little more than entry-level salaries.

Faced with one of the highest levels of competition in 10 years, Hawai'i's security guard companies find themselves bidding for annual contracts that offer profit margins of 6 percent to 8 percent while paying wages as low as $7 an hour.

"Unfortunately, most contracts go to the low bid. So these companies are caught in the squeeze between what they can bill and what they can pay," said Warren Ferreira, chairman of the state Board of Private Detectives and Guards, which currently oversees licenses for 54 security guard agencies.

"A lot of security personnel at one point came from the military but the deployments that have taken place have further reduced the candidate pool," Ferreira said. "And the low unemployment rate has made a lot of people gravitate to other occupations."

Security guard companies employ an estimated 10,000 workers, representing 1.6 percent of Hawai'i's workforce. The combination of increased competition for security contracts and a tight job market mean that dependable employees such as Espinueva — the father of three — can work pretty much whenever they want.

But the low take-home wages — about $600 every two weeks of full-time work — mean little more than "poverty level" for fellow security officer Ron Naumu, 59.

"There's a lot of dust working here," Naumu said last week at the entrance to Kalaeloa Barbers Point Harbor. "But it's busy, so it takes your mind off the heat."

Tight labor market

Unlike the Mainland, Hawai'i's isolation and higher cost of living make it difficult to quickly import labor, adding to the pressures on local businesses.

"We have an extremely tight labor market, not just in the low-wage jobs like security guards. There's also a bottle neck in higher-skilled jobs like management," said Leroy Laney, Hawai'i Pacific University professor of economics and finance. "It has definitely become a constraint on expansion."

Workforce 2005

More than 150 business, military and government job recruiters will meet with potential job candidates at the WorkForce 2005 job fair from 9 to 4 p.m. May 24 at the Neal Blaisdell Center.

General admission cost is $2; students with valid school identification, $1.

Job candidates are asked to dress for a job interview and bring multiple copies of their resumes.

The job fair is sponsored by Oahu WorkLinks, Altres Staffing, Hawaii Pacific University and Success Advertising.

For more information, contact Success Advertising at 536-7222 or go to www.successhi.com.

Some 2,641 Hawai'i employers reported 17,176 job openings for the year ending in March, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor. State labor officials emphasize that the openings do not account for all of the Islands' vacancies.

At the same time, Frank Commendador, the owner of Jan Guards of Hawaii Inc., often faces twice as many competitors when he bids for security contracts.

"Three or four companies would bid in the past but now we're up against nine and 10," Commendador said.

Like other owners and managers of security guard companies, Commendador said he has to constantly look for new business just to hang on to his share of the market.

Shopping centers, condominiums, government agencies and others who hire private security guard companies frequently change contracts these days, in part, because of complaints about the quality of the security officers, said Randall Mack, a member of the state Board of Private Detectives and Guards.

"The graveyard shift is notoriously hard for people to stay awake and the front desk manager or whoever complains that they keep calling and calling and can't reach the officer at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning," Mack said. "Complaints mount up to the point that they get frustrated and say, 'I want somebody else to do the contract.' "

But because of Hawai'i's tight job market, Mack and Ferreira said, the new company comes in and hires the same security officers to do the same job.

"They literally just change shirts," Ferreira said.

Big turnover

In a report to Inter-Con's home office in Pasadena, Calif., Hawai'i manager Kathy Pearse outlined a tough employment environment.

Inter-Con has 94 security officers but turned over 50 of them so far this year.

"Our turnover rate is at an all-time high of 12.5 percent," Pearse wrote. "Our average turnover rates have previously held at about 6 percent."

To make up for the shortages, the company's overtime rate more than doubled from .06 percent to 1.5 percent — further cutting into already tight profit margins.

At the same time, Inter-Con needs to hire 16 more security officers for its latest contract guarding three city depots for TheBus and Handi-Van vehicles.

So while she scrambles to find even more workers, Pearse tries to hang on to the employees she has.

Last week, on pay day, Pearse took her usual twice-monthly drive across O'ahu to hand deliver paychecks.

Pearse knows the checks barely cover her employees' rent these days. But at least passing them out in person, Pearse said, gives her an opportunity to show her appreciation.

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8085.