Last month, I argued in an essay that one of the most effective investments Hawaiʻi can make is to help workers already in the workforce move to high-paying positions. 

Douglas Murata then offered a thoughtful response to my essay — exactly the conversation I had hoped to generate. If most future job openings replace workers who retire, relocate or change careers, he asks, what are we replacing our workforce into? Replacement openings can preserve an economy without improving it. 

Healthcare is an important exception because vacancies create substantial openings in occupations that often pay well and offer advancement. But we already pay a premium for failing to develop and retain enough local workers. Hawaiʻi island providers bring in traveling nurses and temporary physicians from the continent. During emergency gaps, they sometimes fly phlebotomists, certified medical assistants and other lower-paid workers from Oʻahu — adding airfare, lodging and travel time to basic medical costs. 

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Hospitality faces a similar dependency. Resorts recruit temporary workers from Southeast Asia, South America and elsewhere for essential positions. One federal job order posted in July sought 18 temporary housekeepers for a single Kohala Coast resort. Although only one employer and occupation, it illustrates the recruitment, visa, transportation and housing costs imposed on an industry confronting softer demand. 

No public agency appears to maintain a comprehensive Hawaiʻi island count of these temporary workers or their full cost. Without it, we cannot measure what employers and consumers pay because local workforce pipelines and support systems are inadequate. 

Murata’s question therefore leads to a larger one: What would it take to build an economy in which local families can actually afford to stay? 

On Hawaiʻi island, a single adult needs approximately $62,000 annually to meet basic expenses. A two-income family with two children needs roughly $141,000 — and childcare alone costs more than $22,000 a year. The state’s most recent comprehensive housing study also identified an unmet need for nearly 19,000 additional homes in Hawaiʻi County through 2027. 

These are not separate problems. A worker may complete training and secure a better job, yet still be unable to accept it because there is no affordable home near the workplace, no childcare during a hospital or hotel shift, or no reliable way to travel from a rural community. A nominally good job can quickly become economically unworkable. 

We need one strategy for workforce development, economic development, housing, childcare and transportation. Hawaiʻi island should launch a coordinated economic opportunity initiative with clear targets and the urgency this crisis demands. Its central goal should be to increase the number of residents earning a living wage and able to remain here.

That mission should begin with several practical commitments. 

• First, concentrate housing, childcare and transportation investments around major employment centers. Hospitals, resorts and other large employers should help develop workforce housing, provide land or master leases, support childcare with hours aligned to actual shifts, and participate in employee transportation. Government can accelerate permitting and infrastructure; philanthropy can help test new models; employers must also have skin in the game. 

• Second, make economic incentives conditional on community benefit. Tax credits, infrastructure support and other public incentives should favor businesses that create living-wage jobs, train and advance local workers, provide benefits, and expand industries that bring new income into the island rather than simply recycle limited local dollars. 

• Third, use Opportunity Zones far more intentionally. As the federal program enters a new round of designations, Hawaiʻi has a timely opportunity to direct private capital toward underserved areas. But designation alone is not a strategy. We should assemble projects worthy of investment in locally owned businesses, healthcare, food production, housing, clean energy and technology — and pair tax advantages with clear expectations for wages, local hiring, housing affordability and community ownership. 

• Fourth, establish a joint state-county-employer implementation council with deadlines and public measures of progress. It should track not merely people trained or jobs filled, but living-wage jobs created, workers promoted, housing and childcare added near employment, commuting time reduced, and the number and cost of temporary workers imported because local positions cannot be filled. 

None of this requires creating a new bureaucracy. It requires aligning programs and investments that already exist around a shared outcome. 

Murata is right to distinguish replacement from growth. We must do both: connect local people to the best replacement opportunities — especially in healthcare and the skilled trades — while creating new businesses and better jobs that expand what is possible. 

The measure of success should be simple: Are more local families able to earn enough, find a home, care for their children and build their future here? 

If we organize around that goal, Hawaiʻi island and all of Hawaiʻi can become more than a place where positions are refilled. It can become a place where opportunity is deliberately created — and where leaving is no longer the price of building a better life.