Now hiring across Maui
Help Wanted! The exclamation point on the sign taped to a Kihei restaurant’s front door spoke volumes. With the pandemic winding down, construction booming and tourism climbing toward pre-COVID 19 numbers, many Maui employers are feeling a sense of desperation as they struggle to find qualified workers to fill their ranks.
Even when they do hire someone, there is no guarantee the employee will actually show up. Yes, ghosting employers has become a thing on Maui. Whether this portends a shift in workforce attitudes or is merely the tight labor market sorting itself out remains to be seen, but some employers are reacting with higher wages, benefits and perks like signing bonuses.
The hiring website Indeed.com listed 3,706 job openings on Maui this week. The Maui County Office of Economic Development’s Virtual Job Fair had 238 positions listed. Jobs ranged from entry-level positions like housekeeper, clerk and cashier to high-paying professions such as psychologist, engineer and food and beverage manager for a large Wailea hotel. Pay ran the gamut, from $15.20 an hour to $170,000 a year.
“Not too many people are looking for work and lots of clients are looking for employees,” said Aloha International Employment Inc. CEO Anela Sanchez on Friday. “We’re constantly calling our pool of candidates. It’s definitely an employees market right now.”
Sanchez says the labor shortage causes a variety of headaches for island managers and business owners, but a rise in no-shows has added a new reason to take two aspirin.
“They’re all on a schedule and they have a time frame and they are having trouble finding the staff to show up,” Sanchez said. “For whatever reason they’ll say they’re going and they just don’t show up. It’s an employees’ market and they can come and go as they please. You have to offer the highest pay or the best benefits to keep your good employees. It makes it tough for employers who are just barely making it. It is a Catch-22.”
Data released by the Hawaii State Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism this week put Maui County’s unemployment rate at 4.2 percent, compared to 7.1 in July of 2021 and 21.8 in July of 2020. What the numbers do not include is how many of the 95.8 percent of the people with jobs used to work two or three and now make do with one.
Sanchez says she knows Maui workers who moved to the Mainland during the pandemic slowdown. Others told her they left because they could not find affordable housing. We hear of restaurants halting lunch service due to staffing shortages and see stores that were once open all night, now closing early.
Maui’s economic train is once again racing down the track. Look fast and you can read the signs taped to the carriage windows as they zip by.
Help wanted!