Hawaii's unemployment rate falls to 6.3 percent

Hawaii’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from 6.6 percent in May to 6.3 percent in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' July 20 report. June marked the third consecutive decline in the state’s jobless rate, according to the bureau.

Hawaii’s rate was the sixth lowest in the country, with the number of unemployed dropping to 40,400.The national unemployment rate for June was 9.5 percent. The state claiming the highest unemployment rate continues to be Nevada, where 14.2 percent of those seeking work are unable to find it. The lowest unemployment rate, according to the report, was North Dakota at 3.6 percent.

Meanwhile, Hawaii’s initial unemployment claims decreased by 6.3 percent in July. The Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism released a report on July 15 showing that a total of 2,699 claims were filed statewide in the preceding week, compared to 2,879 during the same week in 2009.

However, there is bad news, too

Also, more than three times as many Hawaii small businesses went bankrupt in the first quarter of this year as in the same period last year, according to a new study. Equifax reported July 15 that Hawaii had 41 small-business bankruptcies in the first three months compared to 12 a year ago. That placed the state in the top 15 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas in terms of percentage increases.

In a related development, more than 107,000 square feet of empty office space was added to the Honolulu market in the second quarter, representing nearly 1 percent of Oahu’s office space, according to the CB Richard Ellis Hawaii Index. Approximately the same amount of vacant office space was added to the market in the first quarter. In total, 12.3 percent of all Honolulu office space is currently vacant, according to CB Richard Ellis.

Additionally, more than 12 percent of all home sales in Hawaii during the first quarter of 2010 were foreclosure sales, according to a new report. There were 424 sales of homes that were actively in some stage of foreclosure or bank-owned during the first three months of the year, according to Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac. It was a 94 percent increase over the first quarter of 2009, but relatively flat when compared with the last quarter of 2009.