• Unemployment, deployment Unemployment, deployment Eight to ten years ago unemployment was beginning to be a problem for Kaua‘i residents, with the recovery and reconstruction winding down. The tourism industry was at a nadir, and the drip-down effect on local
• Unemployment, deployment
Unemployment, deployment
Eight to ten years ago unemployment was beginning to be a problem for Kaua‘i residents, with the recovery and reconstruction winding down. The tourism industry was at a nadir, and the drip-down effect on local businesses was more a trickle than a flood.
Today we are in a different world, with not enough qualified employees available to fill the jobs available.
An announcement this week showed our unemployment rate in Hawai‘i is down to a 13-year low with no downturn in employment in sight, bringing us back to the booming economy Hawai‘i enjoyed prior to the Gulf War in 1991, a time when we were still riding the crest of the wave from a glut of investment from Japan and elsewhere in the late 1980s.
We are also facing a loss of key employees through the deployment of National Guard units to Iraq, a deployment that will likely last well over a year.
There is a need for service industry workers, for health workers, for teachers. All these industries are being stretched a bit thin in the present economy.
Mainland recruiters are luring health workers away with promises of good pay, much lower prices, the chance to buy your own home, relocation bonuses and other perks. The downside is one must leave the Islands to enjoy these economic benefits.
Is it worth it? To some it may be. In the long run, though, many who relocate to Las Vegas, the San Francisco Bay region and other areas popular with Hawai‘i residents do have regrets about leaving home.
In some ways, the workers of Kaua‘i are facing a situation that is bringing an economic pinch, just as happened following the devastation of Hurricane ‘Iniki in September, 1992. Prices continue to rise, though we now have big-box retailers to take away some of the sting, housing is hard to find, and generally out of the reach of the average worker who wants to buy their own place.
Are we headed for a crisis, a time when services will begin suffering due to lack of workers? Will a lack of enough qualified workers begin to affect the level of service in our resorts? Will we be unable to bring down class sizes in schools, and will more non-essential classes and programs be cut due to lack of staff in those same schools?
If the cost of housing and lack of affordable rentals continues we may face these problems sooner or later. While the “cost of paradise” has always been a given by those who live on Kaua‘i, when that cost goes beyond what even those working two or three jobs can afford we are in trouble.
