Which occupation groups are projected to generate the most living-wage job openings in Maui County between 2022 and 2032?
Workforce Understory Episode: Season 1, Episode 1 — The Geography of Opportunity
Geography: Maui County
Topic: Living-wage opportunity, projected job growth, occupation groups, and economic diversity
The takeaway
Business and Management occupations are projected to account for 37% of Maui County’s living-wage job openings between 2022 and 2032.
Construction and Repair occupations represent another 19%, followed by Healthcare at 12% and Administrative occupations at 7%.
Together, Business and Management and Construction and Repair account for more than half of Maui’s projected living-wage openings, while most other occupation groups represent relatively small shares or are largely absent.
Maui’s future living-wage opportunity is concentrated in a narrow set of occupation groups.
What this visualization shows
This visualization compares the distribution of projected living-wage job openings across major occupation groups in Maui County.
Business and Management represents the largest share by a substantial margin, accounting for more than one-third of projected living-wage openings. Construction and Repair follows, while Healthcare and Administrative occupations contribute smaller but still meaningful shares.
Beyond those groups, Maui’s projected living-wage economy appears relatively limited. Many occupation groups that provide additional pathways in larger labor markets represent only a small share of Maui’s openings or do not appear at a meaningful scale.
Each of the leading groups may offer a different route into economic mobility.
Business and Management includes occupations across multiple industries, but many positions may require prior experience, supervisory responsibility, professional networks, or a bachelor’s degree. Construction and Repair may provide more accessible pathways through apprenticeships, technical education, licensing, and workplace learning. Healthcare includes occupations with a wide range of education requirements, while Administrative careers may offer opportunities for workers to build transferable skills and move into supervisory or specialized roles.
The visualization identifies where living-wage opportunity exists at scale. It does not yet show which specific occupations are driving the results, whether training capacity aligns with demand, or how accessible these pathways are to Maui residents.
Why this matters
Maui is projected to generate relatively few living-wage openings compared with the number of young people entering its workforce. That makes the concentration of those openings especially important.
Business and Management and Construction and Repair together account for most of Maui’s projected living-wage opportunity. If either group weakens because of an economic downturn, reduced investment, changes in construction activity, or shifts in employer demand, workers may have few alternative pathways into jobs that provide economic security.
The limited representation of other fields also raises questions about the relationship between workforce preparation and the local economy.
Organizations may successfully help learners build skills in STEM, healthcare, technology, and other fields. But those investments will have limited local impact if Maui does not have enough employers or living-wage positions to absorb the talent being developed.
This suggests that workforce development and economic development must be considered together. Maui may need to strengthen pathways into the occupations already creating living-wage opportunity while also supporting the growth of employers and industries capable of diversifying the county’s labor market.
The goal is not simply to train people for promising careers in theory.
It is to ensure that those careers exist locally at sufficient scale.
This evidence invites Maui County to ask:
How can Maui strengthen its largest living-wage pathways while developing a more diverse and resilient range of local career opportunities?
Evidence:
Questions this visualization helps answer
What share of Maui’s projected living-wage openings is concentrated in Business and Management?
How significant is Construction and Repair within Maui’s living-wage economy?
What roles do Healthcare and Administrative occupations play?
How concentrated is living-wage opportunity across Maui’s major occupation groups?
Which parts of the workforce may offer enough opportunity to support coordinated education, training, and employer partnerships?
How diverse is Maui’s projected living-wage labor market compared with those of other counties?
Curiosity:
Questions this visualization raises
Which specific occupations account for the 37% of living-wage openings in Business and Management?
Are those opportunities accessible to workers without bachelor’s degrees or prior managerial experience?
Which construction and repair occupations are projected to generate the greatest number of openings?
Are apprenticeship and technical-training pipelines large enough to meet projected demand?
Which Healthcare occupations account for Maui’s living-wage openings?
Why do fields such as Engineering and Technology represent such a small share of Maui’s projected opportunity?
Are workforce programs preparing people for occupations that do not yet exist locally at sufficient scale?
Do Maui employers have enough capacity to hire and retain graduates from STEM, healthcare, and technical programs?
What role could employer attraction, business expansion, entrepreneurship, or remote work play in diversifying Maui’s living-wage economy?
How vulnerable is Maui to a slowdown in construction or reduced demand for managerial occupations?
Which emerging industries could complement Maui’s existing economy without depending solely on tourism or real estate development?
Can Administrative occupations provide credible pathways into higher-paying business, finance, technology, or management careers?
How are living-wage opportunities distributed across Maui, Molokaʻi, and Lānaʻi?
What transportation, housing, education, or geographic barriers limit residents’ access to the occupations that do exist?
Is Maui’s living-wage economy becoming more diverse or more concentrated over time?
Youth Perspective
Contributor:
Role:
Responding to:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer placerat leo sit amet efficitur lobortis. Nulla sagittis orci in orci fermentum, id ornare urna dictum. Donec dapibus suscipit tortor, et ornare velit dictum id. Mauris libero quam, eleifend a lobortis in, facilisis at odio. Praesent sit amet ullamcorper purus, a pellentesque augue. Nullam enim purus, accumsan ut lobortis ut, venenatis id nisi. Mauris leo nunc, cursus vitae dui nec, porttitor gravida sem. Nunc varius metus sit amet mi porta blandit. Nam a lectus enim. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Mauris leo erat.
