Jobless rate unchanged after months of declines

Hawaii’s unemployment rate is among the lowest in the country, but the state’s chief economist says it still has room to fall.

"The labor market condition is the best ever but our unemployment rate is not at a record low yet," said Eugene Tian on Friday after the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations reported that the seasonally adjusted jobless rate was unchanged at 4.0 percent in December.

"During the previous peak in late 2006 it was 2.3 percent so there is still room," said Tian of the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism. "However, last month we did see an increase in the labor force. That’s caused by two things: population growth — more people coming to the state. And more people looking for jobs, coming back to the labor force."

The statewide labor force, which includes those who are employed and others who are unemployed but actively seeking work, rose to a record 671,600 in December from 669,850 in November, according to the state Labor Department. There were a record 644,750 employed and 26,850 unemployed.

Until holding steady in December, the unemployment rate had fallen for four months in a row. Its all-time low was 2.3 percent in October, November and December 2006.

Hawaii’s recent peak for unemployment was 7.1 percent in July and August 2009 following the recession.

Gary Scheuring, director of training and development for Cutter Automotive Galleries, said his company is seeking to fill 12 to 15 sales positions overall and two to three technician positions at each of the five dealerships around Oahu — two in Ho­nolulu, two in Waipahu and one in Pearl City.

"Those are the most challenging areas for us to fill," he said. "We’re using job fairs. We’re soliciting military groups. We’re using referrals and some of our customers we’re trying to convert into positions with our sales force. It’s becoming more challenging to find enough people to fill the spots that we have."

Scheuring said it’s a numbers game for Cutter, which has its own training center.

"We tend to hire people with no previous car sales experience and we train them from scratch," he said. "We prefer to grow our own, and when you do that, there’s a little bit of a gamble involved. Some people find out it’s not for them and fall by the wayside and some people find out it’s hard work to sell products. Sales people are like customers — it’s a numbers game. We have to be constantly training, and in spite of our best efforts, we’re still going to lose some of the people we train. So for us recruiting and training is ongoing almost year-round. We’re building our nucleus of good, quality hires."

Hawaii’s jobless rate, which is now at its lowest level since June 2008 when it was 3.9 percent, compares favorably with the rest of the country. The U.S. unemployment rate, announced earlier this month, was down two-tenths of a percentage point in December to 5.6 percent. On Tuesday, the U.S. Labor Department will release unemployment data for all states in December.

Through November, Hawaii had the seventh-lowest unemployment rate in the nation behind North Dakota (2.7 percent), Nebraska (3.1 percent), South Dakota (3.3 percent), Utah (3.6 percent), Minnesota (3.7 percent) and Idaho (3.9 percent).

Hawaii’s unemployment rate is derived largely from a monthly telephone survey of households, while a separate survey of businesses determines the number of nonfarm jobs.

The state added 200 nonfarm jobs in December over the previous month with government positions showing the biggest increase with 800 jobs. That was mostly due to variation in seasonal hiring at the Department of Education and the University of Hawaii system. Altogether the nonfarm jobs sector, which includes people holding multiple jobs, rose to 632,400 from 632,200.

The 644,750 employed in the Hawaii labor force was up 1,850 from 642,900 working in November. The labor force data number only counts working individuals once but is greater than the nonfarm jobs because it includes those who are self-employed.

The state and national labor force data are adjusted for seasonal factors. But the county jobs data are not seasonally adjusted and thus do not take into account variations such as the winter holiday and the summer vacation seasons.

For the counties, the unemployment rate statewide was down across all islands but Lanai in December from November.

The rate fell in Hono­­lulu County to 3.4 percent from 3.8 percent, fell in Hawaii County to 4.7 percent from 5.1 percent, declined in Kauai County to 4.3 percent from 4.5 percent and slipped in Maui County to 3.8 percent from 4.2 percent.

Within Maui County, Molo­kai’s jobless rate decreased to 11.1 percent from 14.1 percent and Maui island fell to 3.6 percent from 3.9 percent. But Lanai rose to 2.3 percent from 1.9 percent.