Honolulu Economy

Honolulu Economy: Honolulu County is a key player in Hawaii's diverse economy.

Facilitated through an outstanding partnership between the public and private sector, the diversification strategy is creating more jobs, better jobs and a higher standard of living for Honolulu's highly educated workforce.

The public / private sector partnership operates at state and county levels. The job creation strategy is achieved through:
• Attracting new businesses into the region
• Cultivating an entrepreneurial culture in the state
• Retaining and expanding existing business

One of Honolulu's greatest assets is its competitive labor rate and plentiful supply of educated and skilled workers. As of December 2002, there were 429,250 civilian laborers available in Honolulu County. The county's share of the state's available civilian labor force is 71%. In 2002, Honolulu's unemployment rate was 4.8% lower than the state average of 5.3%. In addition, local colleges and universities augment the county's steady influx of qualified labor.

Hawaii's Gross State Product (GSP) reached $43.71 billion in 2001. Honolulu County's Gross Metropolitan Product (GMP) in the same year was $35.01 billion. Hawaii's retail sale revenue has been in excess of $16 billion partially driven by its tourism industry. Hawaii's visitor expenditures were $10.1 billion in 2001.

Honolulu continues to be an attractive location for new business ventures in spite of the 1990's recession that lead to slow economic growth in Hawaii. This due to its strategic mid-pacific location, time zone advantage, advanced telecommunication infrastructure, growing technology leadership, multicultural-multilingual-educated-productive workforce, rising venture capital funds and angel financing, exceptional research facilities, state-of-the-art business and technology parks, strong infrastructure and first-rate incentives.