Maui County Unemployment Falls Slightly in March

By Sonia Isotov

Unemployment in Maui County fell to 7.8 percent for March 2011 from 8.8 percent in March 2010, according to non-seasonally adjusted unemployment numbers announced today by the Hawaii State Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DLIR).

And, unemployment is down for a month ago, February 2011, for Maui County when the non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 8.0%., and still lower than the national average of 9.2 percent for the same time period.

For the entire state of Hawaii, DLIR reported that the non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for March 2011 remains at 6.1 percent; down from the 6.7 percent reported a year ago March 2010 and the 6.3 percent reported for one month ago in February 2011.

The Hawaii unemployment rate continues to be lower than the national non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 9.2 percent, which was down from 10.2 percent in March 2010 and 9.5 percent in February 2011. There were 594,000 employed and 39,950 unemployed in March, for a total seasonally adjusted labor force of 633,950.  The government sector saw the largest amount of job losses with more than 1000 jobs lost in March 2011, and the transportation sector saw the largest job gains with gains of more than 900 jobs in March 2011.  More than 200 jobs were also gained in the retail sector for grocery stores.

Molokai and Lanai non-seasonally adjusted unemployment are10.8 12 percent and 5.4 5.3 percent, respectively, for March 2011. Down from 12 for Molokai and up from 5.4 for Lanai for February 2011,  and compared to 12.6 percent for Molokai and 6.8 percent for Lanai for a year ago January 2010.