psur@hawaiitribune-herald.com BY PETER SUR | STEPHENS MEDIA ADVERTISING HILO — The jobs are coming back, but so are the job-seekers. That’s one possible explanation for the Big Island’s stubborn unemployment rate, which was 9.2 percent in December. The state Department
BY PETER SUR | STEPHENS MEDIA
HILO — The jobs are coming back, but so are the job-seekers.
That’s one possible explanation for the Big Island’s stubborn unemployment rate, which was 9.2 percent in December.
The state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations released that figure Tuesday, which was not adjusted to account for seasonal variations in hiring.
The unemployment rate for this island has remained above 9 percent since May. A look at county-level statistics in October, the latest month for which data are available, gives a better view of where the jobs are — or where they are not.
The year 2011 began with a similar unemployment rate of 9.3 percent. There were 60,000 people with wage and salary jobs and 7,700 unemployed.
In October, the unemployment rate was at 9.3 percent again. There were 60,800 people with wage and salary jobs — a net increase of 800 — but also 7,910 unemployed.
And as the economy appears to improve, more discouraged workers who have given up looking for work might be joining the ranks of the unemployed, keeping the rate high.
Hawaii County’s 9.2 percent unemployment was higher than the state rate of 6.6 percent and the national rate of 8.5 percent in a month when 37 states recorded falling unemployment.
The Wall Street Journal noted that the jobless rate was highest in states hit hardest by the housing crisis, and that most of the gains were due to employers adding jobs, rather than workers falling out of the labor force.
In Hawaii County, the education and health services performed best, rising from 7,800 jobs in October 2010 to 8,400 a year later.
Registered nurse Darcy Alvarado, 49, of Hilo, is learning how hard it is to get back to work.
After suffering an on-the-job injury in 2009, Alvarado, a separated mother of two, has been on workers’ compensation. Tuesday she applied for a job online at the Workforce Development Division’s resource center in Hilo.
“Because of the economic situation, it makes it even harder because of my injury,” she said.
Now she’s trying to decide whether to go back to school for a higher degree or whether to try searching elsewhere. The problem with the latter is that there are “no jobs out there in nursing.”
“I’ve been looking for a long time,” she said.
How does she keep going? “Determination, I guess,” she said.
Among other sectors, the economy added 400 retail jobs in the first 10 months of October, a period that includes the opening of the new Target and expanded Safeway store in Hilo. Two hundred manufacturing jobs were also added.
But it wasn’t all rosy. During the same time, the construction industry continued its contraction, shedding 200 jobs. The number of government-sector jobs fell by 180. And the number of jobs related to tourism remained flat.
psur@hawaiitribune-herald.com
