LIHU‘E — Non-seasonally adjusted employment levels for Hawai‘i’s counties may indicate fewer people were working during the weeks leading up to Christmas compared to 2010.
The Hawai‘i State Department of Labor and Industrial Relations announced Tuesday that the seasonally adjusted annual unemployment rate for the state in 2011 was 6.3 percent, down from 6.6 percent in 2010.
Statewide, the annual average job count also improved over last year, expanding by 7,100 or 1.2 percent to 594,000, a news release states. The most notable gains were in the categories of professional and business services (up 3,000), educational and health services (up 2,900), and leisure and hospitality jobs (up 2,500).
Though annual, year-over-year unemployment has improved in both Hawai‘i and the U.S., Hawai‘i’s month-over-month comparisons are a mixed report.
Seasonally adjusted unemployment for December increased to 6.6 percent from 6.5 percent in November and 6.3 percent over December of last year. U.S. unemployment levels decreased to 8.5 percent in December from 8.7 percent the previous month and 9.4 percent the previous year County and island unemployment figures are not seasonally adjusted.
Kaua‘i County unemployment levels in December were 8.3 percent, which is down half a percentage over last month (8.8 percent) but higher compared to the same month last year (7.8 percent).
With the exception of Maui, all Neighbor Islands experienced similar up-down unemployment levels for the period.
The Big Island in December had the highest unemployment rate in the state at 9.2 percent, which is an improvement from 9.6 percent the previous month but worse than the December 2010 level of 8.6 percent.
Honolulu County unemployment increased from 4.8 percent in December 2010 to 5.3 percent last month, but decreased from 5.7 percent in November.
Maui County’s unemployment fell to 7.3 percent in December, down from 7.7 percent in November and 7.4 in December 2010.
Following the trend of most counties, statewide non-seasonally adjusted unemployment for December decreased to 6.2 percent from 6.6 percent in November but increased from 5.8 percent in December 2010. In an opposite trend, U.S. non-seasonally adjusted levels increased to 8.3 percent in December from 8.2 percent the prior month, but decreased from 9.1 percent in December 2010.
Standard unemployment rates do not reflect the entire spectrum of unemployed workers, such as the marginally attached and discouraged workforce.
Marginal and discouraged workers are defined as those who want and are available for work but were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the four weeks preceding a survey.
Labor underutilization data for the fourth quarter of 2010 through the third quarter of 2011 indicates that total unemployment levels, including marginal and discouraged workers, was 15.4 percent for Hawai‘i and 16.2 percent for the U.S.
