RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM The Waikiki Trolley headed down Auahi Street yesterday near Victoria Ward Centers. Like many other companies around town, E Noa Corp. is offering incentives to attract new hires -- in this case, a $250 signing bonus for new Waikiki Trolley and tour drivers.

Island firms put holiday employees on wish list

Hawaii companies are looking for holiday-season hires on top of the workers they already can't find.

Many employers facing a tight labor market are trying new recruitment tactics or have sweetened the pot to lure and keep workers.

McDonald's is staging its first statewide hiring day today at all 76 restaurants in the islands. The clothing retailer Crazy Shirts and City Mill hardware chain are hosting their own job fairs today. And ground transportation companies are offering signing bonuses and free training to compete for drivers and other workers.

Even Goodwill Industries of Hawaii, which helps the disabled and disadvantaged find work, is hunting for a new job retention coach who will help clients keep their new jobs. The previous coach, Rose Shin, was promoted and now runs one of the agency's 26 programs.

Meanwhile, ground transportation companies are struggling to compete for new hires with TheBus, the city taxpayer-subsidized service that offers starting pay of $13.55 an hour, government worker benefits and Teamsters Union bargaining savvy to new drivers.

"Privately owned ground transportation companies have difficulties because we cannot match the city bus," said E Noa Corp. owner Katsumi Tanaka.

E Noa is offering a $250 signing bonus to new Waikiki Trolley and tour drivers. The company even welcomes applicants who have not yet received their commercial driver's licenses.

Competition for drivers is so stiff that Roberts Hawaii will pay to train people for commercial driver's licenses. "That's a $2,500 cost," said spokeswoman Sam Shenkus. After 12 months of work and 2,080 hours of driving, new drivers can get an additional bonus of $500 or more, depending on licensing and qualifications at the time of hire.

It's not just about drivers, though. Companies such as E Noa also need mechanics and maintenance people, which TheBus continually recruits, Tanaka said.

'Tis the season for retailers to hire seasonal help for the holidays. The help-wanted ads are everywhere, but the workers are not.

City Mill's job fair is from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. today at its Kaimuki Store at 3086 Waialae Ave.

"We do accept applications for the other stores, but we'll be hiring on the spot for Kaimuki," said Jan-Marie Gomes, City Mill's human resources specialist for recruiting.

To compete for workers, the hardware retailer has become more flexible in employee scheduling and more competitive in pay and benefits. "It just depends what they're asking for. It's an employees' market right now," Gomes said.

The chain regularly has a variety of openings, from entry-level positions to supervisors and assistant managers, since it promotes from within. "What we look for is the attitude. That is just as important as experience," Gomes said.

McDonald's wants to draw applicants for crew positions into all of its 76 stores. The company, which has high turnover, likely will hold more statewide hiring days, said Donna Ribellia-Abreu, operator of the Mililani and Mililani Mauka stores. The former managing director of McDonald's Corp. of Hawaii, Ribellia-Abreu started with McDonald's as a cook in 1976.

"We're trying to encourage the students ... about the essence of being able to go to school and work and have a social life and still excel in all of that. That's how we believe we will be instrumental as first-time employers," Ribellia-Abreu said.

But with Hawaii's unemployment rate down to a scant 2.6 percent as of August, employers are not plunging the depths of a labor pool; they are scraping the bottom of a talent puddle.

"Most everyone agrees that 3 percent is full employment," said James Hardway, special assistant to the director in the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. "A majority of those unemployed are going to be considered hard to employ, with low job skills or ex-offenders, or the disabled."

Some in the labor pool fail drug tests, which are required by an increasing number of employers. That pressures the state to help train the remaining jobless population, Hardway said.

State efforts include the governor's new Economic Momentum Commission, a program to help hopeful construction workers refresh their math to pass a Carpenters Union test and a $2 million project to provide training for certified nurses assistants, Hardway said.

Some Hawaii employers looking for workers may actually benefit from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. National professional organizations are setting up databases of their members driven from their homes and jobs by the storms.

The American Marketing Association has assembled a database of displaced marketing professionals' resumes, which is available on the Web site of the group's Hawaii chapter.

"Hawaii suffers a real brain drain, especially with the increase in housing costs, and we've all seen it," said Lee Collins, AMA Hawaii president.

"We're seeing the middle managers leaving, and the scary thing about it for our state, not just in marketing but in all disciplines, is that they are the future."