Hawaii September Jobless Rate at 2.8%: Maui County Rises to 3.1% as Island Jobs Diverge
Hawaii's Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT) released its own monthly jobs data on October 19: the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 2.8% in September, up 0.1 point from 2.7% in August and compared with 2.1% a year earlier, while the national rate was 4.2%. GSM's earlier Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) state jobs story gave the national and state overview without Hawaii's county and island breakdown; this report carries the state government's own monthly release with that local detail.
Some 675,450 Hawaii residents were employed in September and 19,450 were unemployed, for a labor force of 694,900; the not-seasonally-adjusted rate was 3.2%. Nonfarm payroll jobs rose by 400 year over year.
By county, Maui County's unemployment rate rose to 3.1% in September, from 2.9% in August and 2.4% a year earlier. Within the county, Lanai posted 4.2%, the county's highest, Molokai 3.5% and Maui island 3.1%. The Kahului-Wailuku metro area held 74,800 nonfarm jobs, down 400 from August but up 1,000, or about 1.4%, year over year. The Honolulu metro area added 600 jobs from August but was down 800 year over year. DBEDT said county and island figures are not seasonally adjusted and follow BLS methodology. (GSM, from the Hawaii DBEDT news release of October 19)
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 檀香山 Waikiki Kalakaua Avenue 的 Moana Surfrider 酒店实景；Wikimedia Commons，CC BY-SA 2.0，作者 w_lemay
