Hawaii’s unemployment rate rose to its highest level in nearly a year in September, according to a report released Thursday that contained seemingly conflicting data about the health of the state’s job market.

The jump in the unemployment rate to 6.4 percent in September from 6.2 percent in August on a seasonally adjusted basis marked the third consecutive monthly increase and pushed the jobless rate to its highest level since November, the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations reported.

The increase in the jobless rate occurred despite the economy adding a net 6,300 payroll jobs, including an estimated 800 new positions at Disney’s Aulani Resort at Ko Olina.

Officials at the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations said the "divergence" between the direction in unemployment rate and the payroll job count was probably due in part to an increase in the number of people working more than one job. If a newly created job is filled by someone who already has a job and wants it as a second job, there is no reduction in the number of unemployed.

The unemployment rate is based in large part on a telephone survey of households, while the payroll number is derived from a survey of businesses. While the two sets of data sometimes diverge on a month-to-month basis, they follow a similar trend over the longer term, the officials said.

Hawaii’s September unemployment rate compared with a seasonally adjusted 9.1 percent rate nationally.

Hawaii County has the highest unemployment rate in the state at 9.5 percent, down from 9.6 percent in August. Kauai County’s rate rose to 8.7 percent in September from 8.6 percent the month before. The rate rose to 7.9 percent from 7.5 percent in Maui County. In Honolulu County the rate rose to 5.7 percent from 5.5 percent. The county data are not seasonally adjusted.

While Hawaii’s economy is showing some signs of improvement, the labor market will continue to have a difficult time, said Richard Lim, director of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

"Despite the fact that we are in a recovery, don’t expect a steep jobs recovery any time soon," Lim said in an address to the Hawaii Society of Business Professionals. "This is not a normal recession. The time it takes to regain lost jobs after a recession is increasing."

Lim said it took an average of six months for the U.S. job market to recover all the jobs that were lost in recessions between 1948-1981. The average recovery time rose to 15 months in 1990, 39 months in 2001, and following the latest recession it will take an estimated 60 months go get back all the lost jobs, he said.

Bill Boyd, a labor economist at University of Hawaii at West Oahu, said there are some bright spots in the local job market, which has struggled to return to pre-recession levels.

"The 6,300 payroll jobs added in September was the most we’ve seen in years. And the number of people filing for weekly unemployment insurance claims is going down," he said.

The number of people filing for unemployment benefits averaged about 2,000 per week for the first 10 months of this year. That’s down from an average of 2,300 per week for the first 10 months of 2010.