Pacific Business News: Building the Bench: How Hawaii businesses can nurture, advance and retain talent
January 16, 2026
By Janis Magin
Building a bench of talent for jobs beyond entry level is gaining greater importance for Hawaii employers at a time when the unemployment rate is near record lows.
The lack of advancement can drive some workers to seek a better job elsewhere — including a remote position or one on the Mainland — while the high cost of living coupled with lower comparable salaries makes it difficult for many businesses to recruit from out of state.
“If you want to have talent when you need it, you’d better be building a bench all the time,” Bishop said. “Because you never know when some key people are going to just leave.”
Bishop was one of four panelists on Pacific Business News’s Workforce Development Panel this week on “building the bench,” along with Jasmine Francisco, human resources manager at Kyo-ya Ohana LLC and the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani Waikiki Beach hotel; Kazu Hayashida, workforce planning manager at Hawaiian Electric Co.; and Wally Marciel, vice president and general manager of Jet Hawaii Forwarders and interim president and CEO of Damien Memorial School.
Hawaii employment at a glance
Hawaii’s unemployment rate in November was 2.2%, seasonally adjusted, down from 3% in the same month in 2024, while the U.S. unemployment rate was 4.6% in November, up from 4.2% in 2024.
There were 11,000 more people working in November 2025 than in the same month in 2024. Despite that, the state and the counties have hundreds of job openings.
At just the City and County of Honolulu’s Department of Environmental Services, there are currently 250 openings out of a total of 1,200 positions, Roger Babcock, the department’s director, said last week at the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii’s Kamaaina Come Home networking event for engineering careers. Babcock said that includes 50 openings for engineers — half of the department’s total engineering jobs.
November 2025 versus November 2024
Labor force: 688,000 / 682,350 +1%
Employment: 672,650 / 661,650 +1.7%
Unemployment: 15,350 / 20,700 -26%
Source: Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations