There are a lot of people who could exit the H-1 — and stay off it — if they were more aware of the opportunity to do just that.

This, said Kiran Polk, executive director of the Kapolei Chamber of Commerce, is the thinking behind the Hire Leeward initiative, which is planning its third annual job fair 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday on the University of Hawaii-West Oahu Great Lawn. Residents hired locally have the shortest commutes, she said.

The chamber is cosponsoring the event with City Councilmember Kymberly Pine, who represents most of the West Oahu communities. It’s held in the midday largely to ensure the maximum participation by employers who staff the booths, said Polk. One way or another, employees manage to stop by, too: About 3,000 have attended each year, and this time organizers hope for more.

This year the employer roster is up by about 

50 percent, with a tally approaching 70 (see the list at hireleeward.com/participating-employers/).

Polk said the chamber would like to track how many West Oahu residents land a job through this outreach but hasn’t yet been able to pull together feedback from all the employers. 

But this statistic from the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization helps make her case: There are 63,000 new Leeward Oahu jobs expected to come online over the next two decades, and that’s one for every adult resident.

“Connecting Leeward residents with Leeward jobs helps with traffic mitigation,” she said, “and it helps with quality of life.”