What share of Hawaiʻi Island’s working population consists of STARs compared with workers who hold a four-year degree?
Workforce Understory Episode: Episode Four — Mobility Through Lifelong Learning
Geography: Hawaiʻi County
Topic: STARs, workforce composition, job quality, and economic mobility
The takeaway
Among the approximately 153,900 Hawaiʻi Island workers age 25 and older with earnings, 105,257 are STARs—people who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes rather than holding a four-year degree.
That represents approximately 68% of the island’s working population.
The remaining 48,643 workers, or approximately 32%, hold a four-year degree.
More than two out of every three Hawaiʻi Island workers have developed their skills without completing a bachelor’s degree.
What this visualization shows
This visualization divides Hawaiʻi Island’s working population into two broad groups: workers with a four-year degree and workers classified as STARs.
STARs have developed valuable skills through routes other than a bachelor’s degree. Those routes may include community college, certificates, apprenticeships, military service, employer training, work experience, or self-directed learning.
The comparison shows that STARs are not a small or secondary segment of Hawaiʻi Island’s labor force. They are the clear majority.
Approximately 105,257 workers are classified as STARs, compared with 48,643 four-year-degree holders. For every worker with a bachelor’s degree, there are more than two workers who have built their skills through alternative routes.
The visualization describes educational attainment rather than workers’ full capabilities. The STAR population includes people with different levels of formal education, occupational experience, credentials, wages, and access to advancement.
It also does not show whether workers are employed in roles that fully recognize or reward the skills they possess.
Why this matters
Hawaiʻi Island’s workforce system must be designed around the people who actually make up its labor force.
A strategy focused primarily on four-year-degree pathways would center less than one-third of the island’s workers. It would overlook the experience, skills, and advancement needs of the much larger population that has developed its capabilities through other routes.
This is especially consequential because Hawaiʻi Island also faces a constrained supply of living-wage opportunity.
Earlier Workforce Understory analysis found that only about 34% of projected workforce entrants on Hawaiʻi Island could be matched with a projected living-wage opening. The challenge is therefore not simply that most workers lack four-year degrees. It is that a majority-STAR workforce is navigating a regional economy with relatively few jobs capable of supporting economic security.
Employers may depend heavily on STAR workers while offering limited opportunities for them to move into higher-paying roles. Some living-wage occupations may also retain bachelor’s-degree requirements even when workers could perform the job successfully through experience, technical training, or industry credentials.
Improving economic mobility will require both stronger pathways into promising fields and better advancement within the industries where STAR workers already contribute.
Building industries such as Construction and other skilled technical sectors may offer important opportunities, but their scale, accessibility, and regional distribution must be examined carefully. Hawaiʻi Island cannot rely on a small number of promising sectors unless they can generate enough quality jobs to serve a workforce in which more than 100,000 people are STARs.
This evidence invites Hawaiʻi Island to ask:
How can the county create enough living-wage pathways to recognize, develop, and reward the skills held by most of its workforce?
Evidence:
Questions this visualization helps answer
How many Hawaiʻi Island workers are classified as STARs?
How many hold a four-year degree?
Are degree holders or STARs the majority of the island’s workforce?
How does Hawaiʻi Island’s workforce composition compare with the statewide pattern?
Why should workforce strategies be designed around routes beyond a bachelor’s degree?
How many workers could be affected by stronger skills-based hiring and advancement practices?
Curiosity:
Questions this visualization raises
In which Hawaiʻi Island industries and occupations are STAR workers concentrated?
Which industries are classified as Anchor, Building, Partial, or Limited for STAR mobility?
Does Hawaiʻi Island have any Anchor industries?
Which Building industries offer the strongest potential for expansion?
Are those industries large enough to create opportunity for a workforce that is 68% STARs?
Which occupations currently provide living-wage earnings without requiring a four-year degree?
How many STAR workers are employed below their skill level?
Which industries employ many STARs but provide limited wages or advancement?
Are employers using bachelor’s-degree requirements for jobs that could be filled through experience or shorter-term training?
Which credentials and training programs produce meaningful wage gains on Hawaiʻi Island?
Can workers access those programs without relocating, leaving employment, or losing income?
How do transportation and geographic distance affect access to training and jobs?
Are opportunities concentrated in Kona, Hilo, or other population centers?
What pathways are available to workers in rural communities?
Which healthcare, construction, technology, business, or public-sector roles could be redesigned as advancement pathways for STARs?
What prevents incumbent workers from moving into higher-paying positions?
How do STAR wages and advancement differ by race, gender, age, disability, and community?
What role could employer-supported training, apprenticeships, and prior-learning assessment play?
How can economic-development investments create more jobs that reward skills developed through alternative routes?
What indicators would show that Hawaiʻi Island is becoming better at supporting STAR economic mobility?
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