The Hawaiian labor market included less than one million jobs statewide as of 2015. Compare this to the Los Angeles area’s nine million jobs in the city area alone, and you’ll begin to understand that Hawaii’s labor market is “tiny” in comparison to many other U.S. states and regions, according to an article published this year in the Pacific Business News.
This means that Hawaii faces an “uphill battle” to continue to create high-quality jobs in a diverse range of fields and to staff those jobs successfully. Some fields, like the hospitality and tourism sectors, continue to see strong growth while others, like construction, have seen highs and lows in recent years.
But employees undergoing a job search in Hawaii, as well as employers looking to staff their offices, should not be discouraged, as the number of career opportunities created in Hawaii through staffing firms continues to grow. In fact, staffing firms create an average of 4,896 jobs in Hawaii each week, with average annual earnings of $30,645 per job, according to 2014 American Staffing Association Data.
For these employees, staffing work serves as an important gateway to employment. 90 percent of staffing employees said that staffing work made them more employable, and 49 percent said that staffing work is a way to get a permanent job.
For employers, staffing firms can help companies to find the best employees in a state with one of the lowest jobless rates of the nation. In fact, in 2015 the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ranked Hawaii 11th in the United States for lowest unemployment rates.
This means that some employers have difficulty attracting qualified job candidates. Some employers now offer signing bonuses and increased training and advancement opportunities, and spend time and resources participating in career fairs, yet still are not finding the employees they need.
Staffing firms eliminate this problem by connecting these companies with these qualified job seekers.
