Maui County Unemployment Level at 6%
By Sonia Isotov
The Hawai‘i State Department of Labor and Industrial Relations today announced that the not-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for September for Maui County was 6%, down from 8.1% one year ago.
In fact, the unemployment rate declined for all counties in Hawaii, and reached a statewide low not reached since December 2008. Honolulu County reached an unemployment rate of 5% for the month of September, while the unemployment rate for Hawaii County was 7.9% and Kauai County was 6.8%.
Statewide the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.7% for September, down from 6.1% in August, and down from 6.8% one year ago. The last time Hawai‘i had an unemployment rate as low as 5.7% was in December 2008. Statewide, there were 604,000 employed and 36,650 unemployed in September, for a total seasonally adjusted labor force of 640,650.
Nationally, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 7.8% for September, down from 8.1% in August and down from 9% one year ago.
Initial claims and weeks claims for unemployment benefits were down 9.4% and 13.2%, respectively compared to one year ago. Between August and September, initial claims increased by 0.2% while weeks claims dropped by 5.6%.