State’s economic picture continues to brighten

Given the growth projected for military contracting, transportation and clean energy, and the rebound already under way for the visitor industry, it appears that sustainable job gains are on the way. In December, the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization predicted statewide jobless rate will drop to 5.9 percent this year.

Hawaii ended the year with a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 6.4 percent for December, which was unchanged for the sixth consecutive month and down from the 6.8 percent rate in December 2009. That compares to the national seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 9.4 percent for December, which is down from the 9.8 percent recorded for the nation in November.

40,250 people were unemployed out of December’s total workforce of 633,600. That’s slightly less than the 40,700 who were out of work in November; the work force for that month totaled 632,850. Hawaii’s initial unemployment claims totaled 2,392 for the week ending Jan. 22, down 4.4 percent from the 2,503 claims filed during the same week in 2010, according to the Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations and the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

Real estate news was good and bad. Oahu home sales rose in December, capping off a year in which sales rose 10 percent or better over 2009, according to the Honolulu Board of Realtors. Prices in December reflected the trend for the year, with the median price for a single-family home rising and the median price for a condominium holding firm.

In 2010, Hawaii was ranked 11th in the nation for foreclosures, however, with one of every 45 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing, according to RealtyTrac. There were 12,435 properties with foreclosure filings — including notices of default, public auctions and bank repossessions — in Hawaii last year. That was a 38 percent increase over 2009 and three-and-a-half times as many as in 2008.

The number of bankruptcy cases filed last year in Hawaii increased 28 percent when compared to the number of cases filed in 2009, according to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Hawaii. There were a total of 3,954 bankruptcy cases filed in 2010, up from 3,101 cases filed in 2009.