Jobless rate at 5-year low, even as workforce grows

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star-advertiser / may 2012 Job applicant Darrel Amodo of Ewa Beach, left, listened as Brandon Murata, a radiological control technician at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, explained opportunities at a job fair at the Blaisdell Exhibition Center.

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Hawaii’s unemployment rate fell to 4.7 percent in May, its lowest level in nearly five years, the state Department of Labor and Industrial relations reported Thursday.

The May rate was down from 4.9 percent in April and marked the lowest point in Hawaii’s jobless rate since September 2008, just before the Wall Street meltdown that contributed to an ongoing recession, when it was 4.6 percent. The unemployment rate continued rising throughout the recession and peaked at 7.1 percent during the summer of 2009.

The May report also marked the first time this year that Hawaii’s labor force expanded when compared with the previous month, according to the report. The size of the workforce contracted in each of the first four months of 2013, indicating that some unemployed workers had become so discouraged that they gave up looking for work.

Hawaii’s unemployment rate compared favorably with the national rate, which rose to 7.6 in May from 7.5 percent in April.

Hawaii’s labor force, a combination of employed workers and those who are unemployed but actively looking for work, totaled 646,350 in May, up 600 from April. The number of employed rose by 1,750 to 615,750, while those who were unemployed fell by 1,150 to 30,600.

The state and national unemployment numbers are adjusted for seasonal variations, such as teachers temporarily leaving the workforce for summer break.

County data are not seasonally adjusted. The DLIR reported that the rate in Honolulu County rose to 4 percent in May from 3.9 percent in April. The rate fell to 6.5 percent from 6.6 percent in Hawaii County and to 5.3 percent from 5.6 percent in Kauai County. It was unchanged at 4.8 percent in Maui County.

The state unemployment rate is calculated using an economic model that relies largely on a telephone survey of households conducted monthly by the Census Bureau.

Included in the monthly report is a separate measure of payroll employment derived from a telephone survey of businesses. That survey showed that the number of nonagricultural jobs in Hawaii fell by 2,000 in May to 610,900 compared with April. However, the number of payroll jobs rose by 7,200 compared with April 2012.

The biggest increases on a year-over-year basis were in the construction industry, which added 2,700 positions, and leisure and hospitality, which picked up 1,900 jobs.