Maui’s economy
expected to grow

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin staff

Job growth in Maui County is higher than most other parts of the state and unemployment is among the lowest, showing economic strength that will continue into next year, a local economist said today.

Leroy Laney, a Hawaii Pacific University economics professor and consultant to First Hawaiian Bank, made the forecast at the 25th annual Maui County Business Outlook Forum.

The county's job growth throughout the 1990s has been better than that of the other counties, he said.

Job gains in 1999 have exceeded Oahu and the Big Island, but not Kauai, Laney added.

Maui County had a 0.9 percent increase in jobs in the first half of 1999, most of them in construction, after a 1.7 percent gain in 1998, Laney said.

The county's jobless rate averaged 6.1 percent in the first half of 1999, trailing Oahu's 5.1 percent but better than the Big Island's 9.2 percent and Kauai's 7.9 percent.

"Maui's unemployment picture would even look slightly better if only Maui island, with an unemployment rate of 5.9 percent, were considered," Laney said. Molokai's jobless rate was 12.4 percent.

Westbound tourist arrivals on Maui were up 4.1 percent for the first half of 1999. Eastbound arrivals were down 16.4 percent but with 86 percent of its tourists coming from the mainland, Maui wasn't badly hurt by the fall in Japanese traffic.

Maui tourism should grow 2-to-3 percent a year through the middle of the next decade, he said.