Hawaii’s unemployment rate hasn’t budged in half a year.
The seasonally adjusted number for November was 2.9% and marked the sixth consecutive month it has remained at that level, according to data released Thursday by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
“This indicates that Hawaii labor market conditions have been stable,” chief state economist Eugene Tian of DBEDT said in an email. “In November 2024, Hawaii’s unemployment rate of 2.9% ranked the 6th lowest in the nation. Year-to-date through November, the Hawaii unemployment rate averaged 3.0%, ranked the 11th lowest in the nation. Though our economy has fully recovered from the COVID pandemic recession since the third quarter of 2023, some areas are not fully recovered such as tourism, job count, labor force, and payroll job count.”
Tian said the average unemployment rate in 2019 — the year before the COVID-19 pandemic — was 2.5%.
“Our labor market is stable but not fully recovered and the speed of recovery is stalled,” he said. “We hope our unemployment rate goes down gradually toward the 2019 level of 2.5%.”
Tian said that DBEDT projects the unemployment rate in 2025 will decrease to 2.7% due to continued recovery in the economy.
Meanwhile, the U.S. unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% in November from 4.1% the previous month.
Job growth in the state has been showing improvement with nonfarm payrolls — which are calculated from a mail survey of employers — increasing in November by 2,000 jobs from October and jumping by 9,200, or 1.5%, from November 2023.
“The nonfarm payroll job count has been having positive growth since April 2021 due to the recovery from the COVID recession, but the growth slowed to less than 1% for a year (September 2023 to August 2024) due to the Maui wildfires,” Tian said. “The higher growth rates since September 2024 was mainly due to the lower job base after the Maui wildfires. As of November 2024, the nonfarm payroll job count was still 20,000 less than the same month in 2019.”
Private education and health services showed the largest gain in job growth in November with an increase of 1,100 positions from the previous month, while the leisure and hospitality sector grew by 700 jobs.
“Our administration has worked diligently to support economic recovery from the pandemic (of 2020) and the addition of 9,200 jobs year-over-year shows that our recovery efforts are paying off for the people of Hawaii,” Gov. Josh Green said in a statement.
Hawaii’s labor force, which includes those who are employed, those who are unemployed but actively seeking work and those who are self-employed, increased in November to 672,200 from 671,100 in October.
Those employed rose to 652,650 from 651,800, but the number of people unemployed increased to 19,550 from 19,250.
“The numbers indicate that more people came back to the labor force and are looking for jobs,” Tian said. “The supply of labor was higher than the demand for labor.”
Labor force data is compiled from a telephone survey of households.
“Hawaii’s economy is growing at a slower pace in 2024 due to the weakness in tourism,” Tian said. “DBEDT expects that Hawaii economic growth will be better in 2025 mainly driven by construction, real estate, and the faster recovery of international visitors. The labor market will improve in 2025.”
The unemployment rate rose in all four of the state’s major counties from the previous month. State and national labor force data is adjusted for seasonal factors, but the county jobs data is not seasonally adjusted and thus does not take into account variations such as the winter holiday and summer vacation seasons.
Honolulu County’s rate increased to 2.9% from 2.8%, Hawaii County’s rate rose to 3.1% from 3.0%, Kauai County’s rate increased to 2.9% from 2.6% and Maui County’s rate rose to 3.8% from 3.6%. Within Maui County, Maui’s rate rose to 3.9% from 3.7%, and Lanai’s rate increased to 2.7% from 2.1%; but Molokai’s rate fell to 2.8% from 3.4%.
