Reliance on government jobs weakens Honolulu’s recovery

The pace of Honolulu’s economic recovery since the end of the recession ranks in the bottom 20 percent of the nation’s top 100 metropolitan areas, according to a report released Thursday by the Brookings Institution.

The city’s reliance on the government sector as a source of economic activity has been a cause of weakness, according to the report. Many of the cities near the bottom of the list with a high percentage of government jobs suffered disproportionally when federal, city and state agencies cut back on staffing, the report said.

Honolulu was one of 10 cities in the bottom 20 percent that continued to lose government jobs after total employment bottomed out following the 2008-2009 recession.

The overall tone of the report was subdued, with only four metro areas reporting a full recovery in jobs to pre-recession levels.

"National economic indicators provide mixed signals about the future course of the painfully slow national economic recovery," the report’s authors wrote.

The report grouped the 100 cities in five categories from strongest to weakest. Honolulu was in the bottom grouping along with cities such as Atlanta; Chicago; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Philadelphia; and Memphis, Tenn.

Many of the areas with the strongest recoveries, including San Jose, Calif.; Boston; Boise, Idaho; and San Diego, specialize in "technology and cutting-edge manufacturing," the report said.

Honolulu was recognized as one of a handful of cities with an unemployment rate below 6 percent in September, the most recent month for which data were available in the report. Honolulu’s not-seasonally- adjusted jobless rate of 5.7 percent was fifth lowest out of the 100 cities surveyed.

Honolulu’s worst ranking was in "gross metropolitan product," a broad measure of economic activity in the city. Honolulu’s GMP has grown by 2.4 percent since the recession officially ended in June 2009, the 83rd-smallest increase. That compares with an average growth rate of 5.1 percent among the top 100 metro areas during the same period. Between the second and third quarters of this year, Honolulu’s GMP did not grow at all, the 97th-worst performance nationally.