Where are STAR job postings concentrated across Kauaʻi industries, and how does that distribution map onto the opportunity classification framework?
Workforce Understory Episode: Episode Four — Mobility Through Lifelong Learning
Geography: Kauaʻi County
Topic: STARs, living-wage opportunity, industry pathways, occupation groups, and upskilling
The takeaway
Administrative and Support Services is Kauaʻi’s only Anchor industry, with 1,116 job postings accessible to STAR workers.
Kauaʻi’s Building industries include Healthcare, with 537 STAR postings; Professional Services, with 415; and Construction, with 133. Together, these emerging mobility industries account for 1,085 postings.
Among Partial industries, Real Estate has 609 STAR postings and Transportation and Warehousing has 418.
The Unclassified category has the largest reported volume among Limited industries, with 1,564 postings.
Healthcare and Professional Services stand out as promising Kauaʻi-specific mobility pathways, even though neither provides the same opportunity conditions in the statewide analysis.
What this visualization shows
This visualization compares Kauaʻi job postings accessible to STAR workers across four opportunity classifications:
Anchor
Building
Partial
Limited
The framework considers more than the number of job postings. It is intended to distinguish industries based on the combination of STAR access, wages, and evidence of stronger or weaker economic mobility.
Administrative and Support Services is Kauaʻi’s sole Anchor industry. Its 1,116 postings represent a comparatively strong combination of scale, STAR accessibility, wages, and mobility potential.
The Building category includes Healthcare, Professional Services, and Construction. These industries appear to offer promising conditions for advancement but have not yet reached the scale or consistency associated with an Anchor.
Healthcare is the largest Building industry, with 537 postings. Professional Services follows with 415, while Construction contains 133. Together, their combined posting volume is nearly as large as the county’s Anchor industry.
Real Estate and Transportation and Warehousing fall within the Partial category. They contain meaningful STAR demand and some favorable opportunity indicators, but those conditions may vary considerably across occupations.
The Unclassified category leads the Limited group. Because these postings could not be categorized more specifically within the analytical framework, they should not be treated as a single coherent industry. Their large volume also limits how confidently the overall distribution can be interpreted until more of those postings are assigned.
The county results differ meaningfully from the statewide picture. Healthcare and Professional Services are classified as Building on Kauaʻi but Limited statewide, indicating that the economic value of an industry can depend heavily on its regional wages, occupational mix, employer demand, and local living-wage threshold.
Why this matters
Kauaʻi’s small labor market offers relatively few industries capable of creating economic mobility for its majority-STAR workforce.
That makes the identification of Healthcare and Professional Services as Building industries especially important.
Healthcare combines the strongest Building classification with the largest posting volume in that group. It may therefore represent Kauaʻi’s clearest near-term opportunity to connect STAR workers with higher wages and advancement.
But 537 postings do not necessarily translate into 537 durable living-wage pathways.
The industry includes occupations with very different wages, education requirements, and opportunities for progression. Some healthcare support roles may remain below a living wage, while technical, administrative, and clinical occupations may require credentials or experience that are difficult to access locally.
The key opportunity may lie in connecting these roles into a pathway: helping workers enter accessible positions and then advance through employer-supported training, stackable credentials, and clearly defined career ladders.
Professional Services presents a related possibility. If the industry includes occupations in accounting, consulting, design, technical services, administration, or other business functions, it could provide routes into higher-paying work that are less dependent on Kauaʻi’s traditional industries. Skills-based hiring and remote or hybrid employment may increase that potential.
Construction adds another locally grounded pathway but at a smaller posting scale. Its contribution may depend on whether housing, infrastructure, renewable-energy, and resilience investments create sustained demand rather than temporary project-based employment.
Together, the three Building industries offer a more diverse opportunity base than the island might appear to have at first glance. Their combined scale, however, remains modest compared with the nearly 7,000 Kauaʻi STAR workers identified as being within $20,000 of a living wage.
This evidence invites Kauaʻi to ask:
Can Healthcare, Professional Services, and Construction grow into pathways large and durable enough to move a meaningful share of the island’s STAR workforce toward economic security?
Evidence:
Questions this visualization helps answer
Which Kauaʻi industries contain the largest numbers of STAR-accessible job postings?
Which industry is classified as the county’s sole Anchor?
How many STAR postings are associated with Administrative and Support Services?
Which industries make up Kauaʻi’s Building category?
How many postings do the Building industries represent individually and collectively?
Which Partial industries contain the greatest posting volume?
Which category contains the largest number of Unclassified postings?
Where does Kauaʻi currently show the strongest emerging potential for STAR economic mobility?
How does Healthcare’s opportunity classification on Kauaʻi differ from its statewide classification?
How does Professional Services differ between the county and statewide analyses?
Does high posting volume necessarily indicate a strong pathway to living-wage employment?
How diversified is Kauaʻi’s current opportunity base?
Curiosity:
Questions this visualization raises
Why are Healthcare and Professional Services classified as Building on Kauaʻi but Limited statewide?
Which specific wage, STAR-access, and mobility indicators drive the county-level classifications?
Does Kauaʻi’s lower living-wage threshold affect how these industries are categorized?
Does the island’s occupational mix differ from the statewide mix within Healthcare and Professional Services?
Are Kauaʻi employers offering stronger wages or advancement opportunities within these industries?
Which occupations account for Healthcare’s 537 STAR postings?
How many of those positions currently pay a living wage?
Which healthcare roles are accessible without a bachelor’s degree?
What credentials are required to move from entry-level support roles into higher-paying technical or clinical positions?
Does Kauaʻi have enough training capacity to support those transitions?
Could employers provide paid incumbent-worker training and advancement pathways?
How much of Healthcare’s posting volume reflects persistent vacancies or employee turnover?
Which occupations account for the 415 Professional Services postings?
Are those jobs based physically on Kauaʻi, or do some involve remote or statewide employers?
How many Professional Services employers use unnecessary bachelor’s-degree requirements?
Could skills-based hiring open more of those jobs to experienced STAR workers?
Could remote and hybrid work expand Kauaʻi’s Professional Services pathway?
What broadband, workspace, training, and employer relationships would support remote employment?
Which Construction occupations account for the 133 postings?
Is Construction demand stable enough to support long-term mobility, or is it tied to temporary projects?
Could housing, infrastructure, renewable-energy, or climate-resilience investments expand Construction opportunity?
Why is Administrative and Support Services Kauaʻi’s only Anchor?
Which occupations within that industry provide the strongest wages and advancement?
Is its large posting volume partly driven by turnover?
What would be required for Healthcare or Professional Services to become Anchor industries?
Why are Real Estate and Transportation and Warehousing classified as Partial?
Which occupations in those sectors offer strong mobility, and which remain below a living wage?
What jobs are contained within the 1,564 Unclassified postings?
Would assigning those postings to industries materially change the county’s opportunity picture?
How are Anchor and Building opportunities distributed geographically across Kauaʻi?
Can workers without reliable transportation access these jobs and training pathways?
How many of the nearly 7,000 STAR workers within reach of a living wage could the current Building industries realistically absorb?
Would expanding training create more qualified workers than local employers can hire?
Which sectors should receive the greatest near-term workforce investment?
Should Kauaʻi concentrate on Healthcare as the largest Building opportunity or maintain a more diversified strategy?
What evidence would show that Building industries are becoming larger, more accessible, and more effective at producing mobility?
Youth Perspective
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