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Hawaii employers added 2,400 jobs in July and the state’s unemployment rate improved to 2.7 percent despite a recent forecast from the state that the economy will grow at a slower pace for the rest of the year and through at least 2020.
The state’s seasonally adjusted jobless rate would have recorded its fifth straight month at 2.7 percent, but the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations said in its monthly report today that it had revised upward the June unemployment rate to 2.8 percent.
Hawaii’s nonfarm payroll job count, which includes multiple jobs held by one person but does not include self-employed jobs, increased to 656,700 from 654,300 in June. The educational and health services sector showed the largest increase in jobs at 2,300 primarily due to the takeover on July 1 of state-run community hospitals in Maui County — Maui Memorial Medical Center, Kula Hospital & Clinic and Lanai Community Hospital — by Kaiser Permanente Hawaii in the largest privatization in state history. The transition resulted in government employment decreasing by a nearly an identical 2,200 jobs. The trade, transportation and utilities category showed the next largest job increase at 1,800.
The construction industry and the leisure and hospitality sectors had the largest job losses at 300 each.
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