Hawaiian employers face worker shortage

HONOLULU — Unable to find workers for its Kona store on the island of Hawaii, Pizza Hut has been paying to fly employees from Oahu to the Big Island for shifts, increasing their pay and putting them up in company-provided housing.

The worker shortage along the western Kona Coast has led the company to borrow workers from one island to pull shifts at another in yet another sign of the effects of Hawaii's tight labor market on Island businesses.

Henry Katsuda, president and chief executive officer of TD Food Group — the franchise owner of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silver's and A&W Restaurant in Hawaii — declined to provide details on the number of imported employees and the amount of extra pay, housing and other expenses associated with flying them the 163 miles from Oahu to Kona.

But with no signs that the labor market will loosen, Katsuda said through a spokeswoman that "we'll continue doing it until it does."

The shortage has been driven, in part, by a booming local economy and housing prices that remain out of reach for many working-class people. Without enough workers, some businesses in Kona are shuttering, and others are opening later or closing earlier just to stay in operation.

"It's literally putting people out of business," said Stephanie Vigil, manager of the Killer Taco store. "It's hard to find good help, people who want to work. We used to be able to put up a sign and get lots of applications."

Hawaii's statewide, seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped from 3.1 percent in June to 3 percent in July.

"Everyone, from the coffee farms ... to the hotels, is having a hard time recruiting workers," said Lori Sasaki, of the state Workforce Development Division.

"We have a bus that leaves Hilo at 4 a.m. every morning and goes to the Waikoloa hotels [42 miles away], and it's filled every day." Sasaki said. "But even on the Hilo side now, that pool is diminishing, and there's less and less people to draw from."