LIHU‘E — As Kaua‘i’s unemployment rate fell 0.3 percent in April to 8.9 percent, WorkWise in Lihu‘e continued to experience the same amount of “traffic” through its doors, said Bill Grier, the branch manager of Kaua‘i’s “one-stop job center.”
“I was surprised” by the drop and “don’t really have an explanation,” he said Wednesday. “I’ll be curious to see if we remain under 9 percent for May, or if the drop was an anomaly of some kind.”
The number of people claiming unemployment benefits has remained around 3,000 since January 2009, peaking in June 2009 at 3,400, according to statistics from Hawai‘i Workforce Informer.
Currently, some 2,800 are seeking employment on Kaua‘i.
Between May 2008 and January 2010, Kaua‘i lost 4,350 jobs.
“We have a long way to go for recovery,” said Office of Economic Development Director George Costa. “We lost so many jobs in such a short period that it will take several years to get back to the levels we experienced in the mid-2000s.”
Unemployment has likely “leveled off for Hawai‘i and the nation,” according to First Hawaiian Bank’s Capital Markets Review.
More Americans were voluntarily leaving their jobs as opposed to experiencing layoffs in February, a trend which is expected to continue, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In a survey conducted by Right Management in November 2009, many American employees said they planned to pursue new jobs in 2010.
“Down-sizing” and “cost-cutting” measures could be to blame, the article says.
Job satisfaction has been on a downward slope even though the economy has been through “boom and bust during the past two decades,” said Consumer Research Center of The Conference Board Director Lynn Franco in a January press release.
In 1987, more than 60 percent of workers were satisfied with their jobs, a number which dropped to 45 percent this year, according to the release.
And last year, only 34 percent of those employed were satisfied with their wages, according to the Wall Street Journal report.
Income in 2010 “will likely be flat or up slightly, assuming stability in the job market,” according to FHB.
From 1990 to 2009, per capita income on Kaua‘i rose by 0.6 percent, Costa said. Yet the cost of “consumer goods” has increased more than 3 percent and property taxes have risen more than 8 percent.
The median salary on Kaua‘i in May 2008 was a little more than $30,000, according to Hawai‘i Workforce Informer. While statistics have not been updated since that time, online sources say the island’s per capita income — an individual’s average salary — is around $20,000.
Nonetheless, employers are still reporting “strong responses to their listings” via WorkWise’s database HireNet, Grier said.
Attempts to reach Ryan Markham, spokesperson for the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, for more information was unsuccessful by press time.
• Coco Zickos, business and environmental writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 251) or czickos@kauaipubco.com.
