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Jobless rate in Hawaii
By Russ Lynch
fell to 4.3% in May
Star-BulletinHawaii's unemployment rate slipped to 4.3 percent last month, compared with 5.7 percent in the year-earlier month, illustrating continued improvement in the state's economy.
Seasonally adjusted figures from the state Department of Labor show there were 577,350 employed last month, 3.2 percent more than the 559,400 in jobs at the same time last year.
The state said the civilian labor force equaled 603,450 last month, up 1.7 percent from 593,250 in May 1999, which means the growth in jobs is rising at a faster rate than the pool of available workers.
The jobless tally showed an even greater improvement, a drop of 23 percent in the number out of work to 26,150 last month from 33,900 in May 1999.
While the national unemployment average of 3.9 percent was still below Hawaii's, the islands continued to track a much narrow gap than it had through most of the 1990s.
In May 1999, Hawaii's jobless rate was 1.7 percentage points higher than the national average and last month the difference was less than half a percentage point.
Economists have pointed out that the U.S. unemployment rate has remained fairly flat for the last 12 months while Hawaii's has been dropping.
All islands except Molokai showed a year-over-year dip in the unemployment rate. Oahu's rate in May was 3.8 percent, down from 5 percent in May 1999. The Big Island jobless level dropped to 7.1 percent from a year-earlier 8.8 percent.
Kauai showed the highest percentage improvement, falling 1.9 points to a jobless level of 6 percent vs. 7.9 percent a year ago. Maui was at 3.9 percent last month, down from a year-earlier 5.5 percent, and Lanai was at 2.3 percent, down from 2.8 percent.
Molokai, maintaining the highest jobless rate in the state, was at 14.8 percent last month, up from 14.4 percent in May 1999.
May 2000 employment figures were helped by the hiring of temporary workers to help with Census 2000.
