Lahaina fire leads to disappearing tourism jobs, desperately needed construction workers

LAHAINA — On Komo Mai Street in Lahaina, 20-year licensed contractor Derrick Montalvo has been rebuilding Mau Ah Hee’s house, one of more than 2,200 structures that burned more than a year ago in the devastating fire.

Montalvo hopes to be done in time for Ah Hee, a Maui County lifeguard and son of famous surfer Snake Ah Hee, and his wife Ariel to be able to celebrate Christmas with their two kids — 6-year-old Manaiakalani and 3-year-old Kaiakea — in their own home.

“It’s the most important thing to us right now,” Ariel Ah Hee said as she painted portions of the house on Tuesday. “Above everything else you could imagine in the world, this is the most important thing.”

But while rebuilding the residences in the fire-ravaged seaside town can’t happen fast enough for families like the Ah Hees, Montalvo said some of the frustration stems from a lack of construction workers, both skilled and unskilled.

“This is stuff that has been keeping me up since basically the fire,” Montalvo said. “I’m having a hard time finding any workers, they don’t even have to be qualified. The crazy thing is I have people show up and volunteer to help.”

On Maui, the job market has changed dramatically since the fires.

While the number of jobs in the typically king tourism sector are falling on Maui, the demand for construction workers and contractors is increasing so fast the industry has been challenged to keep up.

Carl Bonham, executive director of the University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization and professor of economics, said as of July, there are about 5,100 construction jobs on Maui, an increase of 400 or 8.9% from a year ago.

“All of the work that has been going into cleanup, infrastructure work, the clearing of lots, et cetera, a whole bunch of that shows up in construction job counts,” Bonham said. “If you look at the change in jobs since a year ago … we’ve seen a pretty sizable jump in contracting jobs.”

He said the jump is less than what he would have expected, but thinks he knows why: “I can’t quantify the exact numbers — but there are people working on Maui on construction-related work that are employed by companies whose home bases are on O‘ahu. And so then they show up on O‘ahu data.”

The same UHERO research shows that accommodations and food service jobs, generally those in the tourism industry, have dropped 12.4% during the same year period, from nearly 22,000 in July 2023 to 19,140 a month ago.

“The basic story with tourism right now is it’s pretty dang flat,” Bonham said. “There was some recovery last fall, pretty remarkable, about 25 percent recovery last fall, and then really it’s just kind of gone sideways since then.” 

Overall jobs on Maui are down about 4,300 (6%) over the past year, from 76,600 in July 2023 to 72,300 this past July. In the private sector, the only area in addition to contracting that has added jobs on Maui over the past year is health care, which is up 300, Bonham said.

An even greater surge in construction jobs is expected on Maui, with the rebuilding of Lahaina requiring “thousands of more construction workers,” Bonham said.

“The question is: ‘Where are they going to come from?’ Some are coming from the other islands, but inevitably some are going to come from the continent,” he said.

Kate Cloutier, the director of talent and employee engagement head for Elcco Electric, is spearheading an effort to increase the number of certified electricians on Maui. The company currently has 25 people in various stages of a five-year program that requires 10,000 hours of paid work and then passing a test to become certified.

The company’s program that began in 2011 with “three or four” apprentices continues to grow. Elcco Electric now is building a facility in Kahului that will enable the number of apprentices to double when it is completed in December or January.

The company’s goal is to “create a career path with good paying wages,” Cloutier said.

Typically, the company would not not be running a first-year apprentice class this year, but it decided it would due to the increased need for electricians due to the Lahaina rebuild.

“We’ve got a lot of work (currently), but we’ve got a lot of work coming up,” Cloutier said. “I think the need is greater than our capacity at this point. We’ve had to turn people away, which is certainly frustrating.”

Montalvo said without enough contractors and construction-related workers on Maui, the key is to work together with government agencies, but so far he has been frustrated by the the lack of communication he has been seeking. He and longtime friend and fellow contractor Danny Palakiko have organized the Maui Construction Industry Coalition, a group of contractors that have “identified issues as well as possible solutions” for the Lahaina rebuild.

Montalvo said pointing fingers and blaming each other won’t get Lahaina rebuilt. The only way it will get done, he said, is for Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen “to step up and be a Hawaiian leader.”

“We need people, we need Hawaiian Homes, we need OHA, we need Kamehameha Schools, we need the state to step up and act like Hawaiians because you know that (Lahaina) community, that community sticks together like Hawaiians. That community will help each other like Hawaiians,” Montalvo said.

Laksmi Abraham, the mayor’s director of communications and government affairs, confirmed to HJI that Bissen will try to meet with Montalvo to discuss the issues that concern Montalvo and the Maui Construction Industry Coalition.

“Derrick is an integral member of our community, and cares about genuinely helping people, both through his business of building local homes, and his many years of coaching and volunteering,” Bissen said. “We look forward to discussing ways we can work together with local contractors and expedite the building of homes in West Maui and throughout Maui County.”

Josh Magno, the interim executive director for Pacific Resource Partnership, a labor management group with 6,000 union carpenters statewide, said it is a huge undertaking to find enough construction workers needed for the massive amount of work ahead in Lahaina.

This comes at a time when multi-billion-dollar construction projects are happening on O‘ahu, led by the restructure of the dry docks at Pearl Harbor and the rebuild of Aloha Stadium. But Magno said the industry understands that the Lahaina rebuild is “extremely important.”

“In the Lahaina community, we had 19 of our own members who lost their homes in the fire,” Magno said. “So, we were also directly impacted, our membership was, so being a part of the rebuild effort is something very, very important to not just our industry but to our union and our contractors as well.”

Magno said that the Lahaina rebuild must be handled with empathy.

“You hate to think of it as a mega-project, but (the Lahaina rebuild) is another large area where our industry is going to really need to step up and provide the kind of contractors, local workers needed to help with the rebuild effort,” he said. 

Most of the union workers directly affected by the wildfire “are still on Maui, they’re still working, luckily they were able to find alternative housing either with friends or family,” Magno said.

In 2019, prior to the pandemic, the carpenters union had 750 members on Maui. Currently there are 650 members of the carpenters union on Maui, a number that is expected to grow as more projects get the green light through the permitting process.

Andrew Pereira, the director of public affairs for the carpenters labor management group, said in an email to HJI: “With the continuing strength of the construction industry and the Lahaina rebuild, we expect to see the number of members continue to grow and reach pre-pandemic levels.”

The carpenters union workers often are employed for large projects and commercial properties, which is one reason why Magno expects the numbers of union members to grow as the larger projects in Lahaina come on to the stage. Residential lots in Lahaina have all been cleared, but the cleanup of commercial properties is still underway.

But many workers who build single houses are not union members with union benefits. They often work for cash because they don’t have the apprenticeship hours or journeyman certifications, and receive a 1099 tax document after their work is done.

On Maui, Pereira said its members are being kept busy with several refurbishment, housing and infrastructure projects, including the Maui Bay Villas by Hilton and the state’s 450-unit Ka La‘i Ola temporary housing development that is being spearheaded by HomeAid for West Maui fire victims.

Pereira said that the union carpenters under Layton Construction recently finished the Kapalua Village project that features 50 modular units supplied by Daiwa House. That project was privately funded by Yoshi Yanai, a billionaire who built his fortune with Fast Retailing/Uniqlo.

As of mid-August, the total construction value on Maui was at $427 million, according to Pacific Resource Partnership’s market analysis.

TOURISM JOBS TAKE A DOWNTURN

As Maurizio and Onalani Alvareztostado sat on their lānai Thursday in Kīhei, with their baby bouncing back and forth between them, they counted themselves fortunate.

Maurizio Alvareztostado works several types of jobs in the construction industry and Onalani Alvareztostado is a bartender for a South Maui hotel. Their professions appear to be headed in different directions.

Onalani Alvareztostado is very concerned at what she sees on a daily basis at work — including the skyrocketing room rates being charged at South Maui hotels.

Right before the fires, she said the tourism industry on Maui had seemed to have finally bounced back from the low numbers experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the island shut down for more than six months in 2020.

“Everybody was finally getting their rightful shifts and the income that they were used to making,” she said.

But the fires, like the pandemic, led to an overnight dramatic drop in visitors. Since then, the recovery of tourism has been slow.

“I feel like a lot of it has to do with people are now taking their hardworking money and spending it in other countries right now,” she said.

Naomi Cooper, director of communications for the Maui Hotel & Lodging Association, pointed to state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism numbers released Aug. 29 showing Maui visitor numbers were down about 20 percent from July 2023 to July 2024.

The difference of about 60,000 between the two Julys — 237,495 this year compared to 297,082 last year — were both lower than the year before the pandemic when 307,834 people visited Maui in July 2019.

Cooper said a big part of the swing was the decline in corporate or large group bookings, which usually make up about half of the total occupancy rates.

“And that customer was normally going to book about six months to a year out, and so what happened during the fires or right after the fires is those whole first few months after the fires, all of those visitors were deterred elsewhere,” Cooper said. “And so their bookings that would have been coming in now are showing up in other markets.”

There could be an even bigger blow coming up to tourism-related jobs, though it’s unclear to what extent. The Maui Planning Commission voted 5-0 in July to recommend passage, with some tweaks, of Bissen’s proposal to eliminate more than 7,000 short-term rentals in an effort to create much-needed long-term housing. The proposal now is in the hands of the Maui County Council.

When the council proposed a ban of short-term rentals in apartment districts in 2021, economist Paul Brewbaker did a study for the Realtors Association of Maui that gauged the “hypothetical economic impacts” would be the loss of 14,126 jobs across hotel, retail, transportation and other related industries.

Another study released in June by the Travel Technology Association and Hawai’i economic consultant Kloninger & Sims put the estimated job losses at 7,800, though Bissen previously questioned the study’s facts and “clear financial interest” in the short-term rental industry.

The council budgeted $300,000 this year for an updated study by its own Office of Council Services staff on the impacts of the ban.

Maurizio Alvareztostado said his work doing tiling, demolition, steel framing and wood framing primarily for single-family homes had been steady throughout the last 2-1/2 years. While there was a little pause right after the August 2023 fires for construction workers, he said now the demand is surging.

“There’s been no shortage of work,” he said. 

Magno said that the field is great for young people interested in finding a job that would allow them to stay in the islands. After serving a four-year apprenticeship, carpenters can make more than $100,000 per year with solid benefits.

“It’s a really good time to be in the industry right now,” Magno said. “I think we’ve had a good run for the last 10, 12 years and for the foreseeable future there’s a lot of work for young folks or older to enter into the trade.”

Montalvo had served at Lahainaluna High School as a teacher and its athletic director before transitioning into construction work in 2003. Now at age 65, he began collecting his state retirement pay and was “basically retired,” although he was teaching construction classes at the University of Hawai‘i Maui College.

But when the fires struck, it broke his heart.

“How am I going to give up my contractor’s license when I have people coming up to me and asking me, ‘Coach, you think you can help me out?’,” he said. “Now am I supposed to say no? I cannot. It’s beyond my ability. So, I’ve been trying to help wherever I can.” 

Montalvo is currently working only on the Ah Hees’ home because he has a personal policy of not signing a contract until the permits are in place, a process that Ariel Ah Hee has spearheaded for her family.

The Ah Hees, who are living with Ariel’s mother in Pā‘ia, started the rebuild of their new 1,200-square-foot, 3-bedroom, 2-bath home in early July.

To make up for the worker shortage, the rebuild of the Ah Hee home has become a family affair. On Tuesday morning, with Christmas just three months away, Montalvo put Ariel Ah Hee to work painting while Mau Ah Hee’s mother Myrna Ah Hee and nephew Kainalu Ah Hee were caulking.

“There’s so much little things that could add up to big things that could help us get this ball rolling and get things done,” Montalvo said. “I still believe that we can all work together for the betterment of Lahaina.”