Isle jobless rate up to 6%
But the April rate was still below the year-ago level
By Russ Lynch
Star-BulletinHawaii unemployment in April rose to 6 percent, the highest it has been since the start of the year but lower than the previous April's 6.4 percent level. The April level was higher than the national average jobless rate of 4.8 percent.
The state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations said there were 35,700 unemployed people last month, 3,000 more than there were in March.
The number of nonagricultural wage and salary jobs in Hawaii declined by 2,300 from March, for an April total of 530,200, but that was 900 more than the April 1996 count of 529,300.
There were some gains. Hotels had 200 more people on their payrolls in April than in March, and health services gained 100 jobs compared to March.
However, retailing lost 700 jobs in April compared to March as stores let go employees they had hired for spring sales. Another seasonal decline was in private educational services, where April had 400 fewer jobs than March.
Construction lost 300 jobs due to less county work on Maui and the Big Island.
Honolulu maintained the lowest unemployment rate among the islands with an April jobless rate of 4.9 percent, higher than the March rate of 4.6 percent but below the April 1996 level of 5.3 percent.
Molokai fared the worst, at 11.8 percent, up from 10.7 percent in March but down from 14.8 percent in April 1996.
