The Pacific Business News released an article titled, “Nearly 11,000 More Hawaii Jobless Than A Year Ago.”

The Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations recently reported there were 28,100 people unemployed last month, an increase of 62 percent compared to 17,350 people unemployed a year ago.

You would think a 62% increase in the unemployment would really be bad, but Hawaii has the 8th lowest unemployment in the country at 4.2%.  Hawaii actually has more people employed this year in August, than in August of last year. (636,050 employed, up from 628,850)

The big problem would be on the outer islands, which are not as diversified economically:

Among the isles, Molokai fared the worst, with an unemployment rate of 13.7 percent in August, up from 11.9 percent in July and 6.3 percent in August 2007.  Hawaii County’s unemployment rate of 6.1 percent was higher than the state’s, and even with the national unemployment rate

The closing of Molokai Ranch really hurt Molokai. The shutdown of Aloha effected the Big Island more than any other island and the slowdown in tourism hurt the Big Island as well.