Hawaiian Telcom yesterday said it is temporarily supplementing its local work force with Mainland help.

The move is part of an effort to speed up the clearing of billing issues, said spokeswoman Ann Nishida.

The $1.6 billion acquisition of Hawai'i's major phone company in May 2005 by Washington D.C.-based Carlyle Group resulted in about 150 new local jobs as various "back-office" duties were moved from the Mainland to Hawai'i. However, that transition has been fraught with customer service issues.

That, combined with Hawai'i's tight labor market, has driven the company to supplement its local work force of about 1,800 employees with a Mainland call center. That will not affect local employment, Hawaiian Telcom said.

"No layoffs are planned — this is for temporary work only," the company said in a written statement. "These (customer service) jobs were brought back to Hawai'i, and our intent is to keep them here.

"We are advertising our customer service positions now and still prefer to hire locally first."