Data Dive: These Jobs Were Once In High Demand In Hawaiʻi. Not Anymore
Meanwhile, some occupations have grown more quickly in Hawai’i than the rest of the nation.
Three white-collar occupations that were mainstays of Hawaiʻi’s job market are no longer among the top 20 for civilian workers.
One of them is “other teachers and instructors,” which covers a wide range of educational roles including tutors, teachers of adult basic and secondary education, and teachers of English as a second language, or ESL. The other two, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, are financial clerks and secretaries and administrative assistants.
The jobs that replaced them in the top 20 were counselors, social workers and social service specialists, food preparation and service, and computer-related occupations.
This played out between 2016 and 2023, according to an analysis released last month by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. (The analysis does not examine the factors that led to the changes.)
The data also highlights other occupations that not only remained in the top 20, but showed what the department called “extraordinary” growth compared to the rest of the nation.
The category of “other healthcare practitioners and technical occupations” grew by 125% in Hawaiʻi – almost twice the national rate of 73.1%. That category includes positions such as health information technologists, medical registrars, dentists and surgical assistants.
Other occupations that grew more quickly in Hawaiʻi than the rest of the U.S. were supervisors of transportation and moving materials (up 58.5%) and one linked to Hawaiʻi’s tourism industry: “entertainment attendants” such as ushers, ticket-takers and cashiers (up 45.8%).
The report also found that while the number of civilian jobs nationwide increased by 7.5% over those seven years, in Hawaiʻi it dropped by 2.4%.
The occupation with the greatest losses over that period was retail sales worker; it lost more than 13,000 positions but stayed in the top 20.
“Data Dive” is funded in part by the Will J. Reid Foundation.
