5-day jobless
filings pass 4,400

Declining air travel in the
wake of terrorism fuels large layoffs
and unemployment claims

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By Jean Christensen
Associated Press

Fueled by widespread layoffs following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the weekly tally of new unemployment claims in Hawaii reached its highest total in memory last week, the state Department of Labor & Industrial Relations said yesterday.

Unemployment offices across the state reported a total of 569 new claims on Friday, bringing the preliminary count for the week to 4,414.

That was the highest five-day total labor officials could remember for any time in recent decades, even including the period during the 1991 Gulf War and the months following Hurricane Iniki in 1992.

"There were also a lot of claims filed during those times, but I don't recall seeing these high-level claims," said Francisco Corpuz, acting chief of the Labor Department's Research and Statistics Office.

The majority of the filings were on Oahu, where 2,568 people applied for benefits from Sept. 24 to Friday.

FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Nelson Cabanlit takes a number to join the large crowd waiting
in the State Unemployment Office in the Keelikolani Building
in Honolulu on Sept. 21. Before Sept. 11, the average statewide
weekly total for unemployment claims was 1,400.

On the Internet: Unemployment statistics and daily airline passenger counts: http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/special/index.html

The five-day total was 831 on Maui, 781 on the Big Island and 234 on Kauai.

In the previous week, 3,377 people statewide filed for unemployment benefits. The average statewide weekly total is 1,400.

Hawaii's tourism industry has been reeling from the international slowdown in air travel that followed the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon by hijacked commercial jets.

Airline passenger counts in Hawaii have been off by more than 30 percent over last year's levels since the attacks.

On Friday, Hawaiian Airlines said it would furlough 430 employees from its staff of 3,524. Aloha Airlines earlier said it would cut about 25 percent of its interisland flights while laying off 250 of its 3,000 employees.

The latest layoffs appeared to keep unemployment offices busy yesterday.

"I can tell you what I saw downstairs this morning: It looks like this Monday will be as bad as last Monday," said Labor Department spokesman Tom Jackson, whose Punchbowl Street office is upstairs from the downtown Honolulu unemployment office.

With little time to train extra staff, the department brought five former employees out of retirement to help with the crush, he said.

The Legislature is planning to convene a five-day special session Oct. 22 to deal with the economic repercussions of the attacks.

The state's congressional delegation also said it will push for incentives to encourage air travel, including income tax deductions, as well as loans for small businesses and extended unemployment and health benefits for laid-off airline workers.