Isle unemployment
jumped in January
But the 5.6 % rate
Star-Bulletin staff
remains below the 1997 peakHawaii's job count was down by 9,700 in January compared with December as the state's unemployment rate rose to 5.6 percent, state figures show.
One local economist said 1998's job count is sure to be down too.
Much of January's drop was a typical seasonal decline as retailers let go their holiday hires and the schools cut temporary jobs.
But even though January is normally a low job-count month, the latest total of 527,000 nonagricultural wage and salary jobs was particularly low, down 1,800 compared with the January 1997 count of 528,800.
"I would predict that jobs are going to decline more in 1998 than they did in 1997," said Leroy Laney, chief economist at First Hawaiian Bank. Recently announced mass layoffs make that an obvious assessment, he said.
Liberty House laid off about 160 workers last month. The City & County of Honolulu plans to cut more than 300 positions, several hundred sugar workers on Kauai have been furloughed for at least two weeks, and Bank of Hawaii has launched a two-year job reduction program to cut more than 500 positions.
Economists consider the job-count statistic, taken from actual payroll reports by employers, to be a more accurate indicator than the unemployment percentage figure, which comes from a small survey of households.
Hawaii's January jobless rate was higher than the December state rate and the January national rate, both 5.2 percent. However, it was nearly a percentage point lower than the January 1997 rate of 6.5 percent.
The state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations has revised its 1997 figures upward, after realizing that the average job count through the year was lower than earlier calculations showed. The department initially reported a 5.8 percent rate for January 1997. For all of 1997, the revised Hawaii unemployment rate was 6.4 percent, up from the previously announced 5.9 percent.
In January 1998, Oahu maintained its relatively healthy job picture compared to other islands, with a 4.8 percent rate. The Big Island was at 8 percent, Kauai was at 9.3 percent, Maui had a jobless rate of 6.4 percent and Molokai was at 13.8 percent.
