LIHUE — Slowly but surely, Kaua’i residents are getting back to work.
Over the past year, the county has seen a steady decline in unemployment, from 13.2% in December 2020 to 6.7% in December 2021, according to a report from the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
This matches trends statewide, where unemployment was at 10.3% in December 2020, dropped to 6% in November 2021, and continued to decline to 5.7% in December 2021.
According to the DBEDT report, 38,400 new jobs were created statewide between December 2020 and December 2021, spurred largely by a 22,600 job growth in the leisure and hospitality industry that was nearly completely shutdown due to the ongoing pandemic.
Despite the downward trend, Kaua‘i County unemployment remains the highest in the state.
Hawai‘i’s 5.7% unemployment rate is among the highest in the nation, much higher than the 3.7% nationwide.
Kaua‘i unemployment spiked during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaping from 1.9% in February 2020 to 32% that April as the tourism industry was decimated by the virus. That number rapidly declined in the months after, and has since dropped at a slower-but-still-substantial rate.
The rates are calculated only among workers who have been out of work for 15 weeks or more.
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Guthrie Scrimgeour, reporter, can be reached at 647-0329 or gscrimgeour@thegardenisland.com.
