Field GUide Chapter 2:
Access to opportunity
Chapter 2
Access to opportunity
Chapter 1
The Workforce Challenge
What problem are we actually trying to solve?
How is opportunity experienced across Hawaiʻi’s workforce?
Chapter 1 of the Field Guide explored the nature of Hawaiʻi’s workforce challenge, revealing that the issue is not simply a shortage of jobs or workers, but the need to create pathways that connect people to quality careers over time. That understanding naturally leads to a second question:
How is opportunity experienced across Hawaiʻi’s workforce?
While Hawaiʻi shares a common workforce vision, the evidence from Season One suggests that access to opportunity is far from uniform. Where someone lives, the education and skills they possess, the industries available in their community, and where they are in their career all influence the opportunities they are able to pursue.
Looking across the evidence, we found that many common assumptions about economic opportunity do not fully capture how people actually experience Hawaiʻi’s workforce. Rather than following a single pathway, residents navigate very different labor markets, career trajectories, and opportunities for advancement.
Together, the evidence from Season One revealed four important insights about access to opportunity—changes in how we understand where opportunity exists, who is able to access it, and what conditions help transform work into long-term economic mobility.
Chapter 3
Recognizing opportunity
Where should communities focus their efforts?
Chapter 4
Building Mobility Pathways
How do we turn opportunity into lasting mobility?
Chapter 5
NEXT Questions
What questions remain unanswered? What do we need to know to learn more?
Insight 1:
From education levels to career outcomes
Opportunity isn’t determined simply by educational attainment.
It’s shaped by how education connects to careers.
Education is one of the strongest predictors of economic opportunity, but Season One found that education alone does not guarantee career success.
Looking across Hawaiʻi’s workforce revealed a more nuanced picture. Workers without four-year degrees have experienced meaningful wage gains through programs like Good Jobs Hawaiʻi, demonstrating that short-term, career-connected learning can support economic advancement.
At the same time, many college graduates continue to experience underemployment, working in jobs that do not fully utilize their education or provide the wages they expected.
Together, these findings suggest that educational attainment alone does not determine economic mobility. What matters is whether education, training, and workforce systems successfully connect people to careers that offer meaningful opportunities for advancement.
This shifts the conversation from educational attainment to educational connection. Instead of asking, “How much education do people have?” we begin asking: “How well are we connecting education to opportunity?”
Evidence from the Workforce Understory Data
A bachelor’s degree does not automatically lead to a living-wage or degree-aligned career, and graduate outcomes vary substantially across fields of study and campuses.
Most Hawaiʻi workers are STARs, developing valuable skills through community college, certificates, apprenticeships, military service, employer training, work experience, and other routes beyond a four-year degree.
Thousands of STAR workers are already within reach of a living wage, suggesting that targeted learning, advancement, and job-quality improvements could help many workers make meaningful economic progress.
Educational requirements differ sharply across wage levels: living-wage opportunities are more likely to require education or training beyond high school, while jobs with lower formal education requirements are more likely to pay below a living wage.
These findings challenge the assumption that education and economic mobility naturally move together. Instead, they suggest that the quality of workforce pathways—not simply the quantity of education—plays a critical role in shaping career outcomes.
Why This Matters
Workforce conversations have often focused on increasing educational attainment as the primary strategy for improving economic opportunity.
Season One suggests a more complete perspective. Education remains critically important, but the greatest opportunities emerge when learning is intentionally connected to labor market demand, employer hiring practices, career navigation, and ongoing opportunities for advancement.
This changes how we think about workforce success. Rather than measuring how many people complete a degree or credential, we begin asking whether education is helping people access careers that enable them to learn, work, and thrive in Hawaiʻi. That shift in perspective changes how we design both education and workforce systems.
Questions This Evidence Raises
For Workers
Which education and training pathways are most likely to lead to long-term career advancement in Hawaiʻi?
How can workers identify opportunities that build lasting economic mobility rather than simply increasing credentials?
For Communities
How can employers, educators, and workforce organizations work together to strengthen the connection between learning and career opportunity?
Where are existing education and training pathways already producing strong workforce outcomes, and how can those models be expanded?
For Decision Makers
How should workforce success be measured beyond degrees, credentials, and program completion?
What additional information would help students and working adults make more informed education and career decisions?
How can education, workforce development, and employers better align around long-term economic mobility?
Insight 2:
From statewide averages to local realities
Opportunity isn’t distributed evenly across Hawaiʻi. It’s shaped by the unique strengths and realities of each community.
Statewide workforce data provides an important picture of Hawaiʻi’s economy, but Season One found that statewide averages often conceal the very differences that matter most for local decision making. Looking across the counties revealed that each island experiences a distinct combination of workforce supply, employer demand, industry mix, educational attainment, and access to living-wage employment.
Some counties show stronger foundations for pathways into quality careers. Others face shortages of opportunity despite strong workforce participation. Still others have growing industries that could become engines of economic mobility with the right investments and partnerships.
Together, these findings suggest that there is no single workforce strategy that can meet the needs of every community.
Statewide averages provide context, but local decisions require local understanding.
The more useful question becomes: “What opportunities already exist within this community, and how can we build on them?”
Evidence from the Workforce Understory Data
Access to living-wage opportunity varies dramatically across counties, even before differences in industry mix, education, and geography are considered.
The educational pathways into living-wage employment differ by island. Some counties rely more heavily on bachelor’s-degree pathways, while others show a larger role for high-school-level trades and very little opportunity connected to middle-skill credentials.
What education levels are required for living-wage job openings on Hawaiʻi Island?
What education levels are required for living-wage job openings in Honolulu?
What education levels are required for living-wage job openings on Maui?
What education levels are required for living-wage job openings on Kauaʻi?
Each county has a distinct mix of occupations generating living-wage openings, creating different foundations—and different vulnerabilities—for local workforce strategy.
The industries where mobility appears most promising also differ across islands, reinforcing that statewide evidence must be translated into place-based priorities.
Together, these findings challenge the assumption that statewide workforce strategies will naturally produce equitable outcomes across Hawaiʻi. Instead, they suggest that understanding local labor markets is essential for designing effective workforce investments.
Why This Matters
Communities do not need identical workforce strategies to contribute to a shared statewide vision. Season One suggests that the greatest opportunities for collaboration emerge when local leaders understand the unique strengths, industries, and workforce dynamics that define their own communities.
This changes how we think about statewide coordination. Rather than asking every county to implement the same solution, statewide success depends on helping each community strengthen the pathways that already have the greatest potential for local residents.
In this way, place-based strategies become the building blocks of a stronger statewide workforce system.
Questions This Evidence Raises
For Workers
Which industries in my community offer the strongest opportunities to build a stable, living-wage career?
How do local labor market conditions shape the opportunities available to me?
If opportunity is limited where I live, what pathways exist to advance without leaving my community?
For Communities
Which industries already have the strongest foundation for expanding economic mobility?
What partnerships could strengthen existing workforce pathways within our community?
Which barriers are preventing residents from accessing opportunities that already exist locally?
For Decision Makers
How should statewide workforce investments adapt to reflect local labor market conditions?
Which communities could benefit most from targeted, place-based workforce strategies?
What additional local workforce intelligence would help communities move from identifying opportunity to designing effective action?
Insight 3:
From finding a job to building a career
For many years, workforce success has often been measured by how quickly someone finds employment after completing a program. Season One suggests that this is only the beginning of the story.
Across Episodes 3 and 4, we found that the greatest long-term value comes from helping people build careers—not simply secure their next job. For a high school or college student, that may begin with a paid internship that builds experience, confidence, and professional networks. For an incumbent worker, it may involve gaining new skills that unlock opportunities for advancement into higher-paying occupations.
Although these pathways look different, they share a common purpose: helping people continue progressing toward long-term economic mobility. Together, these findings suggest that workforce development should not be viewed as a series of disconnected programs. It is a continuum of learning, work, and advancement that supports people throughout their careers.
This shifts the focus from job placement to career progression. How do we help people continue building careers over time?
Workforce success isn’t simply helping people find jobs. It’s helping people continue moving.
Evidence from the Workforce Understory Data
Paid internships can build early experience, professional networks, and clearer entry points into longer-term careers.
Scaling connected career pathways requires shared investment across employers, education, workforce organizations, philanthropy, and government.
Many workers are already within reach of a living wage, suggesting that targeted upskilling, advancement, and job-quality improvements could help them continue moving toward economic security.
Helping workers advance over time could generate substantial cumulative earnings gains across every county.
What is the cumulative earnings impact of sustained workforce investment in Hawaiʻi County?
What is the cumulative earnings impact of sustained workforce investment in Honolulu?
What is the cumulative earnings impact of sustained workforce investment in Kauaʻi County?
What is the cumulative earnings impact of sustained workforce investment in Maui County?
Together, these findings challenge the assumption that workforce programs should be evaluated primarily by short-term job placement. Instead, they suggest that the greatest return comes from helping people continue progressing throughout their careers.
Why This Matters
Viewing workforce development as a collection of individual programs makes it difficult to see how different investments contribute to a larger system of opportunity.
Season One suggests a different way of thinking. Internships, career navigation, short-term training, employer partnerships, and incumbent worker upskilling are not competing strategies. They are complementary pathways that support people at different stages of their careers.
This changes how we think about workforce investments. Rather than asking which program is most effective, we begin asking how different investments can work together to create continuous opportunities for learning, advancement, and economic mobility throughout a person’s working life. That shift moves workforce development beyond employment outcomes and toward long-term career success.
Questions This Evidence Raises
For Workers
What learning opportunities could help me move from my current job into a higher-quality career?
How can I continue building new skills throughout my career rather than viewing education as something that happens only once?
Which pathways are most likely to create long-term economic mobility for someone in my situation?
For Communities
How can employers, educators, and workforce organizations work together to create connected career pathways rather than isolated programs?
Where are the strongest opportunities to help incumbent workers advance into higher-quality jobs?
How can communities make lifelong learning more accessible throughout a person’s career?
For Decision Makers
How should workforce investments balance early career experiences, career navigation, and incumbent worker upskilling?
What indicators best measure long-term career progression rather than short-term employment?
How can funding strategies better support connected career pathways that extend across education, workforce development, and industry?
insight 4:
From isolated success stories to scalable opportunity
Economic mobility cannot depend solely on isolated programs or exceptional outcomes. It becomes scalable when the right conditions come together.
Workforce success is often described through individual success stories—a student who found a great internship, a worker who completed training, or a graduate who secured a rewarding career.
Those stories matter. But Season One suggests they are only part of the picture. Across Episode 4, we began asking a different question: What conditions allow economic mobility to happen consistently—and at scale?
Looking across industries and counties revealed that upward mobility is not evenly distributed. Some industries already contain large numbers of workers who are within reach of a living wage. Some communities have stronger foundations for mobility than others. And some investments appear capable of generating benefits that extend far beyond the individuals who directly participate.
Together, these findings suggest that economic mobility should not be viewed as a collection of isolated success stories. It can be intentionally designed by strengthening the conditions that allow more people to advance over time. The challenge is no longer simply replicating successful programs.
It is understanding: “How do we build the conditions that allow economic mobility to happen repeatedly?”
Evidence from the Workforce Understory Data
Thousands of workers across Hawaiʻi are already within reach of a living wage, suggesting that targeted advancement, upskilling, and job-quality improvements could help many people make meaningful economic progress.
Certain industries already combine strong STAR access, living-wage potential, employer demand, and enough scale to provide a foundation for broader mobility strategies.
Sustained workforce investment could generate substantial long-term earnings gains and broader local economic activity.
What is the total local economic impact of sustained workforce investment in Hawaiʻi County?
What is the total local economic impact of sustained workforce investment in Honolulu?
What is the total local economic impact of sustained workforce investment in Maui County?
What is the total local economic impact of sustained workforce investment in Kauaʻi County?
The conditions supporting mobility differ across communities, including which industries are promising, how many workers could benefit, and the scale of potential economic returns.
Together, these findings challenge the assumption that workforce success depends on discovering exceptional programs. Instead, they suggest that durable success comes from understanding—and intentionally strengthening—the conditions that allow economic mobility to occur across industries, communities, and populations.
Why This Matters
One of the most important lessons from Season One is that economic mobility can be studied, strengthened, and intentionally expanded. Rather than treating successful workforce programs as isolated examples, the evidence encourages us to ask what they have in common. What industries are creating opportunity? What partnerships are making those opportunities accessible? What investments are helping people continue advancing over time?
By focusing on these underlying conditions, communities can move beyond replicating individual programs toward building workforce systems that consistently produce opportunity. This changes how we think about scaling success.
Rather than scaling a single intervention, we begin scaling the conditions that allow many different pathways to succeed. That shift transforms workforce development from a series of promising pilots into a long-term strategy for expanding economic mobility across Hawaiʻi.
Questions This Evidence Raises
For Workers
What conditions have helped people like me successfully advance into higher-quality careers?
Which industries already offer the strongest opportunities for continued economic mobility?
What support would help me move from being close to opportunity to achieving it?
For Communities
Which industries already have the strongest ingredients for expanding economic mobility?
What partnerships are needed to strengthen the conditions that help more residents advance?
How can communities intentionally build on existing assets rather than starting from scratch?
For Decision Makers
Which workforce investments create conditions that benefit the greatest number of people over time?
How can public and private partners identify and strengthen the conditions that consistently produce upward mobility?
What additional workforce intelligence is needed to understand where mobility is emerging—and how it can be expanded statewide?
Looking ahead
Taken together, these four insights suggest that access to opportunity is shaped by far more than an individual’s motivation, education, or career choices. It is influenced by how education connects to careers, how opportunity differs across communities, how workforce pathways support advancement over time, and whether the conditions for economic mobility exist in the first place.
Perhaps most importantly, Season One suggests that these conditions are not fixed. They can be understood. They can be strengthened. And they can be intentionally designed.
Having examined how access to opportunity differs, we can now ask where the strongest conditions for mobility are already emerging—and what we can learn from them. The next chapter explores that question, identifying the industries, occupations, and communities where the conditions for economic mobility are beginning to take shape.
What is the Workforce Understory Field Guide and how do I use it?
What problem are we actually trying to solve?
Chapter 2: Access to Opportunity
You are here!
How do communities recognize where economic mobility is already emerging?
How do communities turn opportunity into lasting economic mobility?
What questions remain unanswered, and what workforce intelligence will Hawaiʻi need to continue learning together?
