Jobless rate holds at 2.7% despite hires

Hawaii employers added 1,200 jobs in June, but the unemployment rate remained stuck at 2.7 percent for the fourth month in a row, according to data released Thursday by the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

The state’s seasonally adjusted jobless rate has been holding at a 10-year low as the economy continues to grow modestly. Until this year the last time the jobless rate was at 2.7 percent or lower was in June 2007.

“The state economy is in a stable growth period — 2.7 percent is still very low,” said Eugene Tian, chief economist for the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. “Most of the industries are doing good, but a few of them are showing declines.”

Hawaii’s nonfarm payroll job count, which includes multiple jobs held by one person but does not include self-employed jobs, increased to 655,100 from 653,900 in May. The professional and business services category showed the largest increase at 1,000 jobs, while leisure and hospitality was next with a gain of 900.

“The job increase reflects the good performance in our tourism industry,” Tian said. “Most of the job increase happened in the visitor-­related industries such as food and drinking place, accommodation and transportation.”

Construction jobs, which has been one of the hottest areas of the economy for the last couple of years, saw hiring fall by 500 jobs to 37,100.

“It may reflect the decline in the value of private building permits from a year ago,” Tian said. “For example, the value of private building permits in Honolulu in June of this year declined by 9.1 percent from June of last year. The lag between building permit insurance and the start of construction is usually a year.”

Hawaii’s labor market is calculated two ways.

The unemployment rate is derived largely from a monthly telephone survey of households that counts the number of people in the labor force.

A separate survey of businesses determines the number of nonfarm payroll jobs. So if one person holds three jobs, all three jobs are included.

The state’s labor force, which includes people who are employed, those who are unemployed but actively seeking work, and those who are self-employed, fell last month to 695,600 from 697,450 in May. There were 676,500 employed in June, down from 678,250 the previous month. Despite the declines, the labor force and employment numbers were the highest ever for any June.

The number of unemployed, meanwhile, declined to 19,100 from 19,200.

Hawaii’s jobless rate continues to be lower than in the U.S. as a whole. Earlier this month the national rate came in at 4.4 percent for June, up from 4.3 percent the previous month.

As of May, Hawaii had the third-lowest unemployment rate in the country behind Colorado at 2.3 percent and North Dakota at 2.5 percent. The U.S. Department of Labor is scheduled to release unemployment rates for all states today.

Hawaii’s lowest unemployment rate since the state began keeping records in January 1976 was 2.4 percent, occurring October through December 2006 and May through September 1989.

Across the state, the unemployment rate fell in June in all of the four major counties from the year-­earlier month. State and national labor force data are adjusted for seasonal factors, but the county jobs data are not seasonally adjusted and thus do not take into account variations such as the winter holiday and summer vacation seasons.

Honolulu County’s rate declined to 3.1 percent from 3.4 percent, Hawaii County’s rate fell to 4.0 percent from 4.7 percent, Kauai County’s rate dropped to 3.2 percent from 3.8 percent and Maui County’s rate declined to 3.4 percent from 3.7 percent. Within Maui County, Maui’s jobless rate fell to 3.2 percent from 3.4 percent, Molokai’s rate declined to 10.4 percent from 10.7 percent and Lanai’s rate fell to 6.1 percent from 7.1 percent.