The City And State Have Thousands Of Jobs Open. But Can They Find Enough Workers? … Hawaii governments are flush with cash coming out of the pandemic and hope to fill open positions as well as create new ones.
During his State of the City speech on Tuesday, Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi laid out an opportunity and challenge for Honolulu. The city government has more than 3,000 job openings, the mayor said. And that doesn’t count 80 new positions he’s planning to add to the Department of Planning and Permitting.
Filling openings quickly requires revamping inefficient hiring processes, the mayor said. And getting more workers — Honolulu’s workforce would total approximately 13,000 if all the positions were filled — is critical, he said.
“The number of people to get the job done in many areas are simply not there,” he said.
Honolulu isn’t alone. Hawaii’s state executive agencies have about 2,000 vacancies, said Ryker Wada, director of the Department of Human Resources Development. That doesn’t count departments outside DHRD’s purview, including the University of Hawaii system and the 22,000-employee Department of Education, which is perennially short of teachers.
