Where are STAR job postings concentrated across Hawaiʻi Island industries, and how does that distribution map onto the opportunity classification framework?
Workforce Understory Episode: Episode Four — Mobility Through Lifelong Learning
Geography: Hawaiʻi County
Topic: STARs, industry opportunity, job postings, living wages, and regional economic mobility
The takeaway
Administrative and Support Services dominates Hawaiʻi Island’s Anchor industries, with 6,317 STAR-accessible job postings. Healthcare also qualifies as an Anchor locally, with 1,811 postings.
The island’s Building industries are much smaller. Information and Technology has 125 STAR postings, Utilities has 66, and Management has 42—a combined total of only 233.
Among Partial industries, the Unclassified category accounts for 2,712 postings and Hospitality accounts for 674.
The Limited category is distributed across Retail, with 684 postings; Government, with 193; Finance, with 192; and Other Services, with 174.
Most STAR-accessible demand on Hawaiʻi Island is concentrated in two Anchor industries, while the sectors showing emerging mobility potential remain extremely small.
What this visualization shows
This visualization compares the volume of Hawaiʻi Island job postings accessible to STAR workers across four opportunity classifications:
Anchor
Building
Partial
Limited
The framework considers more than the number of available jobs. It is designed to distinguish industries based on the combination of STAR access, wages, and evidence of economic mobility.
Administrative and Support Services is by far the largest Anchor industry, with more than three times as many STAR postings as Healthcare. Together, the two industries account for 8,128 postings and represent the strongest combination of scale and opportunity within the county-level analysis.
The Building category identifies industries with promising mobility characteristics that have not yet reached Anchor status. On Hawaiʻi Island, however, these industries remain small. Information and Technology, Utilities, and Management collectively account for only 233 postings.
Partial industries offer some favorable conditions but do not yet provide consistently strong mobility pathways. Hospitality contains 674 postings, while the Unclassified category accounts for 2,712. The Unclassified total should be interpreted cautiously because it may combine postings that could not be assigned reliably to a specific industry or opportunity category.
Limited industries provide STAR-accessible jobs without consistently delivering living-wage earnings or upward mobility. Retail has the largest posting volume in this group, followed by Government, Finance, and Other Services.
The visualization reveals both where current demand exists and how little of that demand is distributed across a broad set of high-opportunity industries.
Why this matters
Hawaiʻi Island’s workforce is predominantly made up of STARs. For economic mobility to improve at meaningful scale, the county needs industries that can provide both accessible entry points and credible routes into living-wage work.
Administrative and Support Services currently carries much of that burden.
Its large posting volume creates immediate opportunity, but such heavy concentration also creates risk. If wages stagnate, employer demand changes, or the industry contracts, Hawaiʻi Island has relatively few other sectors operating at a comparable scale.
Healthcare’s Anchor classification is particularly important because the industry was classified as Limited in the statewide analysis.
That difference suggests that mobility conditions are not uniform across Hawaiʻi. Healthcare may offer STAR workers stronger relative wages, greater demand, or better advancement potential on Hawaiʻi Island than it does statewide. The classification may also reflect the island’s specific occupation mix rather than simply the number of healthcare employers.
This distinction matters for regional workforce strategy. A pathway that appears limited at the state level may be central to economic mobility within a particular county.
The Building category points toward longer-term possibilities, but its current scale is extremely limited. Information and Technology, Utilities, and Management together offer fewer than 250 postings. Even strong pathways in those industries would currently reach only a small share of Hawaiʻi Island’s majority-STAR workforce.
Expanding those sectors may require more than training additional workers. It may depend on infrastructure, employer growth, broadband and energy investment, local procurement, entrepreneurship, and deliberate economic-development strategy.
The county therefore faces two simultaneous tasks: strengthening mobility within the large industries that already employ STAR workers and cultivating emerging sectors capable of diversifying future opportunity.
This evidence invites Hawaiʻi Island to ask:
How can the county improve opportunity within its dominant industries while growing a broader set of living-wage pathways capable of reaching STAR workers at scale?
Evidence:
Questions this visualization helps answer
Which Hawaiʻi Island industries contain the greatest numbers of STAR-accessible job postings?
Which industries are classified as Anchor, Building, Partial, and Limited?
How dominant is Administrative and Support Services within the local opportunity landscape?
How many STAR postings are associated with Healthcare?
Which industries make up Hawaiʻi Island’s Building category?
How many postings do the Building industries represent collectively?
Which Partial industry categories contain the greatest posting volume?
Which Limited industries are recruiting STAR workers?
How does the scale of existing Anchor industries compare with emerging Building industries?
Where does Hawaiʻi Island currently offer both STAR access and stronger mobility potential?
Curiosity:
Questions this visualization raises
Why does Healthcare qualify as an Anchor industry on Hawaiʻi Island but as Limited statewide?
Which indicators differ between the county and statewide Healthcare analyses?
Does Hawaiʻi Island’s healthcare occupation mix include a greater share of living-wage STAR roles?
Are wages in particular healthcare occupations stronger relative to the county’s living-wage threshold?
Does persistent employer demand create clearer advancement opportunities for local healthcare workers?
Which specific occupations account for the 1,811 Healthcare postings?
How many of those roles provide living-wage earnings without requiring a bachelor’s degree?
What pathways allow workers to move from entry-level healthcare roles into higher-paying technical or clinical positions?
Which occupations account for the 6,317 Administrative and Support Services postings?
Does the industry’s Anchor classification reflect broad opportunity or a smaller number of especially strong occupations?
How much wage and job-quality variation exists within Administrative and Support Services?
Is the sector’s large posting volume driven partly by turnover?
What would happen to Hawaiʻi Island’s mobility landscape if Administrative and Support Services demand declined?
Why are Information and Technology, Utilities, and Management classified as Building industries?
What prevents those industries from reaching greater scale?
Can Hawaiʻi Island realistically expand technology employment given its geography, broadband infrastructure, and employer base?
Could remote work create additional Information and Technology pathways for island residents?
What investments would Utilities need to generate more living-wage STAR opportunities?
Could renewable energy, grid modernization, and climate-resilience projects expand the Utilities pathway?
What types of Management roles are accessible to STAR workers?
Are employers recognizing experience as an alternative to bachelor’s-degree requirements for management positions?
What jobs are included in the Unclassified category?
Would assigning those postings to specific industries alter the apparent distribution of opportunity?
Why is Hospitality classified as Partial rather than Limited or Building?
Which Hospitality occupations offer genuine advancement?
What changes would improve mobility in Retail, Government, Finance, and Other Services?
Are opportunities concentrated in Hilo, Kona, or other parts of the island?
How accessible are Anchor and Building jobs to workers in rural communities?
Do transportation, housing, and childcare limit workers’ ability to pursue these opportunities?
How many workers could the current Building industries realistically absorb?
Should workforce investment prioritize expanding Building sectors, improving jobs within Anchor and Limited industries, or both?
What would indicate that Hawaiʻi Island’s opportunity base is becoming more diversified over time?
Youth Perspective
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