Employers up, applicants down at job fair

Modest improvements in Oahu’s job market were reflected at the WorkForce job fair Wednesday at Blaisdell Center, which attracted more employers and a higher quality of applicants than the same event a year ago.

The event, one of three major job fairs each year at Blaisdell, included recruiters from 178 companies and government agencies, up from 160 a year earlier. It featured 10 companies who had never attended in the past, a higher number of "first-timers" than usual, said Beth Busch, executive director of WorkForce.

The 3,200 job-seekers who attended, meanwhile, were fewer than at recent job fairs.

"Today it’s slow and steady," Busch said as she watched people file in. "But none of the employers are complaining. Their booths are full and they’re getting a higher quality of applicants," she said.

With the economy improving, the event is drawing more people who are already employed, but looking for better positions, Busch said.

The number of people who indicated on their registration forms that they were attending to trade up was 50 percent higher than last year, Busch said. At this year’s event there were about 1,000 unemployed attendees for every 500 that were employed.

Margie Villamore, a manager at the Subway restaurant in Waipio, said one of the jobs she was pursuing was for a police dispatcher, a position she had heard about from police officers who eat at her restaurant.

"I’m looking for something a lot more stable with benefits and a little bit of a pay raise," said Villamore, 26. "I’m looking for something challenging."

The number of payroll jobs statewide is expected to increase by 1.5 percent this year after inching up 0.9 percent in 2011, according to a forecast released last week by the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization.

That followed three straight years of job declines from 2007 through 2009. UHERO is forecasting the unemployment rate to dip to 6.1 percent this year from 6.7 percent in 2011 and 6.9 percent in 2010.