Hawaii’s unemployment rate fell in June to its lowest level in nearly five years as local businesses continued to ramp up hiring, the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations reported Thursday.
The jobless rate fell to a seasonally adjusted 4.6 percent in June from 4.7 percent in May, marking the fourth consecutive monthly decline, according to the report. The June rate equaled the previous low of 4.6 percent reached in September 2008.
The DLIR also reported that Hawaii businesses boosted their payrolls by 200 positions from May and by 7,600 from June 2012. The year-over-year gains were largest in the visitor and construction industries, which added 3,600 and 2,400 jobs, respectively.
"We’re seeing a healthy increase in the job count and a declining unemployment rate," said Leroy Laney, professor of finance and economics at Hawaii Pacific University. "The positive numbers are a clear sign the economy is improving."
Hawaii’s unemployment rate has been gradually declining since it peaked at 7.1 percent in the summer of 2009 near the end of the last recession.
Hawaii is among only nine states that had unemployment rates below 5 percent in June. The national unemployment rate remained unchanged at 7.6 percent.
The state and national unemployment numbers are adjusted for seasonal variations, such as working-age students entering the job market during summer break.
County data are not seasonally adjusted. The DLIR reported that the rate in Honolulu County rose to 4.7 percent in June from 4 percent in May. The rate increased to 7.5 percent from 6.5 percent in Hawaii County and to 5.9 percent from 5.3 percent in Kauai County. It rose to 5.4 percent from 4.7 percent in Maui County.
The number of unemployed fell to 29,700 in June, a decline of 900 from May, according to the DLIR report. The number of employed, meanwhile, rose by 1,500 to 617,250.
The labor force, which is a combination of employed workers and those who are unemployed but actively looking for work, totaled 646,950 in June, up 600 from May.
However, there were 2,450 fewer people in the labor force in June compared with the same month a year earlier, indicating that in the past year some unemployed workers became so discouraged they quit looking for work.
A broader measure of unemployment reported by the DLIR that includes discouraged workers and those working part time but who would like to be in full-time jobs is more than double the official unemployment rate. Called the U-6 rate, it was 12 percent in Hawaii in the four quarters ending March 31. Nationally the U-6 rate was 14.5 percent during the same period.
