Jobless rate climbs as employers on Maui cut back
story by staff writer ILIMA LOOMIS
ILWU Maui Division Director William Kennison is trying to remember all the hotels that have given him notice that they are reducing their work force, either through layoffs or by cutting hours.
Losing track, he untacks a list of ILWU employers from his wall, returns to his desk and runs down the page with his finger, counting.
"One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . . seven . . . eight . . . nine . . . 10 . . . 11, 12, 13 . . . 14," he says, looking up. "Fourteen properties."
Coming on the heels of layoffs at Maui Land & Pineapple last month, and the closure of Molokai Ranch in April, Kennison estimates the hotel cutbacks will bring the total number of ILWU members who are out of work to more than 400.
As scary as the situation seems now, he believes worse is likely to come. The hotels are treating the reductions as a "precautionary" measure to stave off deeper cuts, and other unionized industries like sugar and grocery stores haven't yet begun to cut back.
"It is starting to hit, but they're trying to weather the storm," he said. "If fuel prices continue, we're looking at real serious problems."
While large-scale job losses at big companies like ML&P, Molokai Ranch, and the grounded Aloha Airlines and ATA have made headlines, smaller businesses have also been cutting workers.
In June, there were about 800 fewer jobs on Maui compared to the same month a year before, most of them in the hospitality and construction industries, the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations reported.
The unemployment rate for the county was 4.6 percent, up from 2.8 percent in June 2007. That's slightly higher than the statewide average of 4.5 percent. A total of 3,800 people were unemployed over the year, an increase of 1,500, or 67.4 percent.
The county's smaller islands were also seeing a tightening job market, with 5.7 percent unemployment on Lanai (up from 2.3 percent a year ago), and 12.3 percent unemployment on Molokai (up from 9.6 percent).
Applications for state unemployment insurance were up in July, with 1,580 people filing initial claims for weekly unemployment payments as of July 12, compared with 959 people at the same time in 2007.
Of the 14 ILWU-represented hotels facing staff cutbacks, Kennison said about half are implementing outright layoffs, cutting 15 to 30 positions each; two of those have told him the cuts will be permanent.
The remaining properties are reducing worker hours, he said, while a few are asking employees to use up any accumulated vacation time.
While they aren't reflected in unemployment statistics, reduced worker hours are a hidden impact of cutbacks that can be almost as serious as layoffs for families, Kennison said.
Employers may cut hours to reduce expenses without losing valuable workers. Kennison said he's seen this at golf courses, with Kapalua cutting worker hours, and Wailea adjusting shifts so employees work fewer hours over the week.
Losing hours can be nearly as hard on workers as layoffs, when they've built their lives around an expected level of income.
"That income drops, but when you go to the store, or buy gasoline, it only goes up," he said. "It's a pinch."
Along with hospitality, construction has been seeing one of the most significant slowdowns in employment.
Bill Kamai, senior field representative for the Hawaii Carpenters Union, said a third of his active members, or 200 workers, are on the bench. That compares to fewer than 25 unemployed normally.
Some of the larger union developments have been completed in the last few months, while others that had been pending are not moving forward due to financing and permitting issues, he says.
Kamai said he started noticing the slowdown in March, when the housing market began to cool off.
"There weren't any new projects," he said. "And those that were supposed to start were put on hold."
With out-of-work carpenters looking for "anything to get by," Kamai said he's suggesting to members that they directly contact builders who have been employing union workers on their projects to see if they have additional job openings.
That is a deviation from the union's standard procedure of assigning members to jobs as they become available.
Carpenter Justin Stevens was among those left on the bench when the project he was working on, Hoolei, a luxury residential development in Wailea, finished work in May. With no new work on the horizon, Stevens decided to move his Maui-born family to his home state of Massachusetts, where he hoped to find a union job.
"We were living in Harbor Lights, we had three kids in one bedroom," he said. "I just said, 'forget it.' ''
The high cost of housing and uncertain employment just made Maui untenable, he said.
"Construction goes up and down," he said. "But on Maui, when it goes down, it goes down bad."
Robin Rohrer, CEO of Akamai Employment Service, said she's noticed a significant increase in calls from laid-off workers asking for her help in finding a new job.
"My phone has not stopped ringing - and I don't advertise," she said.
She said she's hearing from workers in all industries, but that older workers - the "over-40s and over-50s" - seemed to be especially concerned. Older workers often have higher expectations for income than younger workers, making it harder to find the kind of job they want, she noted.
She's concerned that state unemployment benefits no longer pay for retraining, something she believes jump-started her career when she was out of work over a decade ago.
"We need those resources - both the employer and the unemployed," she said.
Rohrer says she hasn't noticed a reduction in job openings among the employers she works with - many of whom are in "niche" industries such as technology and health care - with one exception.
"I have definitely seen a drop-off in construction," she said.
While the factors causing the economic downturn - the national credit crisis and the international price of oil - may be beyond local control, the county is taking steps to respond, said Mayor Charmaine Tavares.
A job fair for displaced workers, organized together with the state Department of Labor and Maui Land & Pineapple, is scheduled for Monday at the Lahaina Civic Center. A Rapid Response Team meeting for laid-off ML&P workers will run from 9 to 10:30 a.m., with the job fair until 1 p.m.
Tavares said the county is also looking for ways to subsidize transportation for Molokai workers willing to take jobs on Maui and has a special fund that can cover emergency costs for people in immediate danger of losing their housing as a result of being laid off. The fund is administered by the Department of Housing and Human Concerns.
She said she would also consider asking the Maui County Council to defer some county projects to make more funding available to nonprofits providing assistance to struggling families.
"I don't think we've hit the bottom on this economic downturn," she said. "We haven't gotten to the worst point, so we'll probably see more layoffs and reduced hours. "
While all those layoffs may be just numbers on paper, to hundreds of workers they mean a life turned upside down.
Mesrawaty Nursyamsu says she was in shock after showing up for work at a West Maui jewelry store last week and being told by a manager she would be out of a job immediately. The company only offered to pay her through 10 a.m. of that day, she said.
"He just said, 'I've got to let you go. It's slow right now,' '' she said. "Boom - that's it."
With no advance notice, Nursyamsu said she had no chance to prepare for the loss, and wondered why she was chosen to be fired when other workers had been at the store less time than she had.
"My manager was crying," she said. "She said, 'You did a good job. It's not your fault.' ''
Now she's "stressing" to find a way to pay her bills and get health insurance for herself and her teenage daughter, who is almost eight months pregnant. Nursyamsu lives with her boyfriend, but said she doesn't want to shift her financial burdens onto him.
"It's hard for me," she said. "I don't know. I don't know what to do."
Ilima Loomis can be reached at iloomis@mauinews.com.
Labels: Hawaii, ILWU, layoffs
