HONOLULU — The Hawaii State Department of Labor & Industrial Relations (DLIR) today announced that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for June was 4.0 percent, down from 4.1 percent in January through May. Statewide, 648,850 were employed and 26,850 unemployed in June for a total seasonally adjusted labor force of 675,700. Nationally, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.3 percent in June, down from 5.5 percent in May.
Both initial claims and weeks claims decreased by 373 or -21.3 percent and 2,579 or -24.2 percent respectively for unemployment benefits compared to one year ago. Over-the-month initial claims rose 4.9 percent while weeks claims deceased by -1.5 percent from May 2015.
The unemployment rate figures for the State of Hawaii and the U.S. in this release are seasonally adjusted, in accordance with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) methodology. The not seasonally adjusted rate for the State was 4.4 percent in June, up from 3.9 percent in May.
The not-seasonally adjusted unemployment rates for Maui County ticked up to 4.4 percent compared with 3.9 percent in May. Maui island’s rate was 4.2 percent in June – up from 3.8 percent in May but down from 4.8 percent in June, 2014. Lana’i’s jobless picture continues to improve. The June, 2015, rate is a scant 2.5 percent – down from 2.6 percent in May and from 3.5 percent in June, 2014. Conversely, Moloka’i saw the unemployment rate leap to 11 percent in June – up from 8.9 percent in May. On the bright side – it beat last year’s unemployment rate of 13.4 percent.