Employers turned out in force at Tuesday’s job fair at the Neal Blaisdell Center, anxious to fill a growing list of openings.
Recruiters from 180 companies and government agencies had their pick of more than 4,000 job seekers who attended the Job Quest job fair, which is held three times a year at the Blaisdell. Hawaiian Airlines, Hawai‘i Pacific Health and Bank of Hawaii were among the companies actively recruiting for hundreds of positions.
The 180 employers was the highest number at a Job Quest event since September 2008, when there were also 180 employers. The number of job seekers was the highest since May 2011 when 7,000 attended.
Employers are finding it increasingly difficult to fill openings because of a "skills gap" in which many applicants don’t have the necessary training or experience to do the jobs, said Beth Busch, executive director of Job Quest.
"People have been talking about how there are no jobs, but then people realized there are positions. Employers just can’t find qualified applicants," Busch said.
Many people who were laid off in the last recession are still unemployed because they have been unwilling or unable to get retrained, she said.
"If you sold Blockbuster videos or something similar, and that industry has ended, then you have to find where you can transition your skills to. And that’s what we’re trying to help people with," Busch said.
Tuesday’s job fair was the first in which Job Quest had employers give briefings to large groups of prospective employees about which industries are hiring, which jobs are hardest to fill and how to acquire the necessary skills to qualify for those positions.
At Hawaiian Airlines one of the most sought-after positions is flight attendant, said Sunshine Topping, director of recruitment. It’s also a long shot for most applicants. For every flight attendant hired, Hawaiian on average receives 88 job applications, she said.
By comparison, the airline has an immediate need to hire 50 back-office personnel and 30 mechanics, Topping said. Certified airframe and power-plant mechanics who complete two years of training at Honolulu Community College earn $50,000 "right out of school," Topping told a packed room of job seekers at the event.
The back-office jobs include accountants, human resources specialists and other support staff. Topping said Hawaiian is making a concerted effort to hire locally and lure back former Hawaii residents who have moved away.
"If you have friends and family who are on the mainland and have some of these skills, let them know we’re hiring," she told the crowd.
Gail Fox, a Hawaii Kai resident who has worked the past 10 years as a substitute teacher for the Department of Education, said she was interested in jobs both at Hawaiian Airlines and Bank of Hawaii.
"I’m ready to start something new. My girls are going off to college. Now that they’re older its time for me to go back to work full time," she said.
Before working for the DOE, Fox spent 10 years in Silicon Valley working as an accountant for Arthur Young and Apple Computers. "I have a lot of skills. I was looking at the project management and business analyst openings at Bank of Hawaii."
Hawai‘i Pacific Health has roughly 300 openings, many for technical positions such as respiratory therapist, radiology technician, medical assistant and surgical technician, said Carl Hinson, HPC’s director of workforce development.
A radiology technician with an associate degree from Kapiolani Community College and three months of clinical experience can get a job immediately at one of HPH’s four hospitals for $54,340 a year, he said.
At the other end of the spectrum are newly minted nursing school graduates, who are not able to find jobs in Hawaii, Hinson said.
HPH does hire nurses, but the demand is for nurses with several years or more of experience, he said. Many nursing graduates in Hawaii either end up going to the mainland or working locally in low-skilled positions, he said.
