Jobs increase from year prior by 10,400 in November; state unemployment falls to 2.2%

Hawai‘i Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism reports that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for November was 2.2% compared with 2.5% in September.

The unemployment rate was not estimated for October because of the federal government shutdown.

There were 672,350 people employed in November while 15,350 were unemployed. Those numbers mean there was a total seasonally adjusted labor force of 688,000 statewide.

Seasonally adjusted unemployment nationally in November was 4.6%, up from 4.4% in September.

The not-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in November for the state was 2.4% compared with 2.3% in September.

Industry payroll employment (establishment survey)

Total non-agricultural jobs increased by 400 month to month from October to November in a separate employment measurement.

Job gains were experienced in:

• Construction (+600).
• Professional and business services (+200).
• Private education and health services (+200).

Employment remained unchanged in:

• Trade, transportation and Utilities.
• Information.
• Financial activities.

Job losses occurred in:

• Manufacturing (-100).
• Other services (-100).
• Leisure and hospitality (-1,000).

There were roughly equal declines in accommodation as well as food services and drinking places within the leisure and hospitality sector.

Government employment increased by 600 jobs, with most of the additions attributed to above-average seasonal gains at Hawai‘i Department of Education and University of Hawai‘i System.

Non-farm jobs increased by 10,400, or 1.6%, from the previous year.

Seasonal adjustment

Unemployment rate figures for Hawai‘i and the United States in this release are seasonally adjusted in accordance with U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics methodology.

Seasonal fluctuations in the number of employed and unemployed people reflect hiring and layoff patterns accompanying regular events such as the winter holiday season and summer vacation season.

These variations make it difficult to tell whether month-to-month changes in employment and unemployment are because of normal seasonal patterns or changing economic conditions.

Therefore, the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses a statistical technique called seasonal adjustment to address these issues, using the history of the labor force data and job count data to identify the seasonal movements and calculate the size and direction of these movements.

Labor force components

Concepts and definitions used by the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program are the same as those used in the Current Population Survey for the national labor force data:

• Civilian labor force. Included are all people in the civilian non-institutional population age 16 years old and older classified as either employed or unemployed.
• Employed people. These are all people who, during the reference week — the week including the 12th day of the month — did any work as paid employees, worked in their own business or profession or on their own farm or worked 15 hours or more as unpaid workers in an enterprise operated by a member of their family, or were not working but who had jobs from which they were temporarily absent because of vacation, illness, bad weather, childcare problems, maternity or paternity leave, labor-management dispute, job training or other family or personal reasons, whether or not they were paid for the time off or seeking other jobs. Each employed person is counted only once.
• Unemployed people. Included are all people who had no employment during the reference week, were available for work — except for temporary illness — and made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. People waiting to be recalled to a job from which they were laid off need not have been looking for work to be classified as unemployed.
• Unemployment rate. The unemployed percent of the civilian labor force (i.e., 100 times [unemployed/civilian labor force]).