Only 10 percent of Honolulu employers plan to hire during the rest of the year, while 21 percent expect to cut jobs, according to the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey by Wisconsin-based Manpower Inc.

About 68 percent of employers expect to maintain their work force, while 1 percent were uncertain.

“;The hiring activity is expected to be lighter than the previous quarter, when 6 percent of companies surveyed planned to increase staff levels and 11 percent expected to cut payrolls,”; spokeswoman Kanani Iaea said

yesterday in a statement.

A year ago, 17 percent of employers planned to hire, 10 percent expected to make cuts and 73 percent planned no work-force changes.

The information and government sectors provide the best hiring prospects for the coming quarter, Manpower said.

However, that projection was arrived at before the state's early August announcement of 1,100 impending government worker job cuts.

Manpower's pool of some 28,000 employers are surveyed “;typically ... six to eight weeks prior to the survey's release,”; said spokeswoman Karen Tarca.

Job cuts are expected in several sectors of Hawaii's economy, including construction, nondurable goods manufacturing, transportation and utilities, wholesale and retail trade, financial activities, professional and business services, education and health services, and other services, Manpower said.

Only hiring in durable goods manufacturing and leisure and hospitality is expected to remain unchanged.

The report is a far cry from March 2006 when Jamba Juice had begun offering general managers bonuses of $10,000 for agreeing to keep their jobs for three years—and companies were struggling to fill open positions.