Field GUide Chapter 3:

Recognizing opportunity

Chapter 3
Recognizing opportunity

Chapter 1
The Workforce Challenge

What problem are we actually trying to solve?

Where should communities focus their efforts?

How do communities recognize where economic mobility is already emerging?

By the time communities have identified aligned opportunity, tested whether it is large enough to matter, and validated the signal through workforce intelligence, one final question remains: What should we do here?

Statewide workforce data can reveal broad patterns across Hawaiʻi’s economy. It can highlight industries where the conditions for economic mobility appear strongest and identify opportunities that deserve closer attention. It cannot determine what strategy will be most effective in any particular community.

That depends on local context. The same industry may function as an anchor pathway in one county, an emerging opportunity in another, and only a limited opportunity somewhere else. Healthcare may represent one of the strongest opportunities for workforce investment on Hawaiʻi Island while requiring a very different approach on Oʻahu. Construction may justify dedicated workforce infrastructure in one region while being better served through shared partnerships in another. Smaller labor markets may identify promising industries that simply do not exist at a scale capable of supporting stand-alone education or training programs.

Viewed together, these findings suggest that statewide workforce intelligence should not produce standardized workforce solutions. It should help communities make better local decisions. This is perhaps the most important distinction in the Workforce Understory.

The goal is not for every county to pursue the same industries or implement the same programs. The goal is for every community to use a shared understanding of opportunity to design strategies that fit its own economy, workforce, and aspirations. This leads to the fourth step for recognizing opportunity: design locally.

The guiding question becomes: “Given what we’ve learned, what makes the most sense for our community?”

Chapter 2
Access to opportunity

How is opportunity experienced across Hawaiʻi’s workforce?

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?

Step 1:
recognize aligned opportunity

Growth alone does not identify where communities should invest.

The strongest opportunities emerge when access, wages, demand, and scale begin to align. Communities are often encouraged to invest in industries that are growing—growth matters. But Season One suggests that growth, by itself, is an incomplete guide for workforce strategy.

A rapidly expanding industry may create many jobs while offering wages that remain below the living-wage threshold. Another sector may offer excellent wages but remain inaccessible to most workers because entry depends on specialized credentials or extensive experience. Still other industries may appear to be thriving because hiring is increasing, even though relatively few workers can realistically benefit from those opportunities.

Looking at any one of these indicators in isolation can produce an incomplete picture. Across Episode 4, we found that the strongest signals of economic mobility begin to emerge when several conditions are considered together:

Roles are accessible through multiple educational pathways;
Wages support long-term economic stability;
Employer demand is stable or increasing; and
Enough opportunities exist to matter at the community level.

Viewed together, these conditions provide a more useful starting point for workforce strategy than growth alone. This leads to the first step for recognizing opportunity: Start where multiple conditions already appear to be aligning.

The guiding question becomes: “Where do access, wages, demand, and scale reinforce one another?”

Evidence from the Workforce Understory Data

The strongest workforce opportunities emerge when access, wages, employer demand, and scale begin to reinforce one another—and the resulting pattern differs by county.
High hiring demand does not automatically translate into accessible, living-wage careers. Industries with substantial posting activity can still offer uneven wages, access, or advancement potential.
- Where are STAR job postings concentrated across Hawaiʻi industries?
The occupation groups generating the most living-wage openings differ from those generating the most below-living-wage openings, showing why growth alone is an incomplete measure of opportunity.
- Which occupation groups are projected to generate the most living-wage job openings?
- Which occupation groups will generate the most below-living-wage openings?
The occupation groups driving future opportunity also differ across counties, reinforcing the need to interpret statewide signals through local labor-market conditions.

Together, these findings suggest that workforce opportunity is best understood as the intersection of several reinforcing conditions rather than the product of any single indicator.

Explore the Workforce Understory Data Visualization Library

Why This Matters

Communities cannot invest everywhere. Every workforce strategy requires choices about where to focus limited time, funding, and organizational capacity. Season One suggests that those choices should not begin with whichever industry happens to be growing the fastest. Instead, they should begin by asking where the conditions for economic mobility are already beginning to reinforce one another.

This does not mean attempting to pick winners. Rather, it means recognizing where opportunity is already emerging and understanding why. Starting with aligned opportunity allows communities to build on existing strengths instead of trying to manufacture demand where little foundation exists. It creates a more disciplined approach to workforce planning—one that combines labor market evidence with local knowledge before making strategic investments.

In this way, workforce data becomes less about prediction and more about recognition.

Questions This Step Raises

For Workers

Which industries combine accessible entry points with wages that support long-term stability?

Which sectors appear positioned to offer both employment today and advancement tomorrow?

For Communities

Where do multiple workforce conditions already reinforce one another?

Which industries appear promising because several indicators align—not simply because they are growing?

For Decision Makers

How should workforce investments account for accessibility, wages, employer demand, and workforce scale simultaneously?

Where should communities begin investigating before committing major workforce resources?

Step 2:
Test whether the opportunity is large enough to matter

A high-quality opportunity is not necessarily a scalable workforce strategy.

The size of the opportunity helps determine the scale of the investment. Recognizing aligned opportunity is only the first step. The next question is whether that opportunity is large enough to meaningfully improve workforce outcomes within a community.

Season One found that some industries score highly across multiple dimensions. They offer accessible entry points, strong wages, and encouraging labor market momentum. Yet some of those industries employ relatively few people. Others appear to be growing rapidly because a small increase in hiring produces a large percentage change rather than a substantial increase in workforce demand.

Conversely, larger industries may create thousands of opportunities even when some of their indicators are only partially aligned. These differences matter. Workforce strategy is not simply about identifying excellent jobs.

It is about creating opportunity for enough people to change the trajectory of a community. Across Episode 4, one additional question became increasingly important: How many people could realistically benefit if we invested here?

This leads to the second step for recognizing opportunity: Test whether the opportunity is large enough to justify the strategy.

The guiding question becomes: “Is this opportunity large enough to meaningfully improve workforce outcomes?”

Evidence from the Workforce Understory Data

Industries differ substantially in the scale of opportunity they offer. Some combine strong wages and accessibility with enough hiring activity to support broad workforce strategies, while others remain valuable but relatively small.
- Where are STAR job postings concentrated across Hawaiʻi industries?
The industries large enough to anchor a workforce strategy vary widely by county, reflecting differences in employer mix, workforce size, and regional demand.
The number of workers positioned near a living wage also differs by county, shaping how many people a targeted advancement strategy could realistically reach.
The potential earnings gains and broader local economic returns from sustained workforce investment vary across counties, reinforcing the need to match the scale of the strategy to the scale of the opportunity.

Together, these findings suggest that workforce opportunities should be evaluated not only by their quality, but also by their potential reach. Some industries represent valuable niche pathways, while others have the capacity to improve economic mobility for thousands of residents.

Explore the Workforce Understory Data Visualization Library

Why This Matters

Communities rarely have enough resources to invest equally across every promising industry. Season One suggests that recognizing opportunity is only part of the decision-making process. Communities must also determine whether an opportunity is large enough to justify dedicated workforce infrastructure, long-term partnerships, and sustained investment. Some industries may warrant comprehensive workforce strategies because they employ thousands of workers and offer broad mobility potential. Others may be better supported through regional collaboration, shared training models, or cross-sector approaches that allow multiple smaller industries to benefit from common investments.

Importantly, a smaller industry is not a less valuable industry. It simply calls for a different strategy. This changes how communities think about workforce investment. Rather than assuming every promising industry deserves the same level of attention, local leaders can match the scale of their response to the scale of the opportunity. In this way, workforce planning becomes more intentional, allowing communities to invest where they can create the greatest impact while still supporting specialized industries that are important to the local economy.

Questions This Step Raises

For Workers

Which industries offer both strong career opportunities and enough hiring demand to create realistic employment options?

How should I think about careers in smaller, specialized industries compared with larger sectors that offer more openings?

Which skills could allow me to move between multiple industries as opportunities change?

For Communities

Which industries are large enough to support dedicated workforce partnerships or training programs?

Which promising sectors would benefit more from shared infrastructure or regional collaboration?

How can we balance investments in high-impact industries while continuing to support specialized sectors that matter locally?

For Decision Makers

How should workforce investments balance opportunity quality with workforce scale?

Which industries have the greatest potential to improve outcomes for the largest number of residents?

When does an opportunity justify industry-specific infrastructure, and when is a shared workforce strategy more appropriate?

Step 3:
Understand the signal through workforce intelligence

Labor market data identifies where to look.
Workforce intelligence explains what you’re seeing.

By the time communities identify industries where access, wages, demand, and scale begin to align, one important question still remains: Why is this opportunity appearing in the data—and does it represent a pathway worth strengthening?

Labor market data can identify where employers are hiring. It can estimate wages, project future demand, and highlight industries that appear positioned for economic mobility. Those are essential signals. But they are only the beginning.

The data cannot explain why those signals exist. It cannot distinguish between genuine industry expansion and persistent turnover. It cannot reveal whether employers are struggling to hire because of skill shortages, compensation, workplace conditions, housing constraints, or changing business models. And it cannot tell us whether workers see these careers as meaningful, accessible, or desirable.

Answering those questions requires a different kind of evidence. It requires listening to the people who experience—and shape—Hawaiʻi’s workforce every day: workers, learners, families, employers, educators, workforce organizations, industry associations, labor organizations, community partners. Each sees a different part of the system.

Together, they transform labor market information into workforce intelligence. Throughout Season One, we found that the strongest opportunities emerged when quantitative evidence was paired with local knowledge. The data helped identify promising places to begin. Conversations with employers explained hiring patterns. Workers and learners described the barriers and aspirations hidden beneath the numbers. Educators and workforce organizations revealed where pathways were succeeding—and where they were breaking down.

No single perspective was sufficient on its own. Workforce intelligence emerged by bringing them together.

This leads to the third step for recognizing opportunity: Validate every promising signal with the people who know it best. The guiding question becomes: “What explains this opportunity—and what would it take to strengthen it?”

Evidence from the Workforce Understory Data

County-level industry signals identify where promising workforce opportunities may be emerging, but those signals require local interpretation before they become investment priorities.
Employer conversations help explain whether hiring patterns reflect expansion, turnover, persistent vacancies, changing skill needs, or other pressures hidden behind the data.
Workers, learners, families, and community partners reveal barriers, aspirations, and job-quality concerns that labor-market statistics cannot capture on their own.
The A Good Job in Hawaiʻi framework reinforces that career success must be understood through people’s experiences of economic security, health and well-being, contribution, belonging, and continued growth—not wages and employment alone.

Together, these findings suggest that workforce intelligence is strongest when labor market evidence is combined with employer insight, worker experience, community knowledge, and local partnership.

Explore the Workforce Understory Data Visualization Library

Why This Matters

Data can identify where opportunity may be emerging. It cannot explain why. Nor can it determine whether that opportunity represents a pathway worth strengthening. Those questions require investigation.

Employers can explain whether hiring reflects business expansion, persistent vacancies, workforce turnover, seasonal demand, or changing skill requirements. Workers and learners can describe whether careers are attractive, accessible, and capable of supporting the lives they hope to build. They can identify barriers that rarely appear in labor market statistics, including transportation, childcare, housing, workplace culture, scheduling, career navigation, and opportunities for advancement.

Educators and workforce organizations can assess whether existing education and training pathways are preparing people for the occupations employers actually need. Community organizations, labor partners, and industry associations often understand the broader conditions that influence whether residents can successfully enter, remain in, and advance within a career.

Each perspective answers different questions. Together, they create a more complete picture of the opportunity. Season One suggests that the strongest workforce strategies emerge when labor market data becomes the starting point for a collaborative investigation rather than the conclusion of one. Workforce intelligence is created by combining quantitative evidence with employer insight, worker experience, community knowledge, and local expertise.

This changes the role of workforce data. Rather than providing all the answers, it helps communities ask better questions, engage the right partners, and focus collaborative problem-solving where it is most likely to have the greatest impact. Good workforce decisions require both evidence and curiosity.

That shift transforms workforce planning from interpreting labor market statistics into designing workforce pathways informed by both evidence and lived experience.

Questions This Evidence Raises

For Workers

What makes a career opportunity meaningful to me beyond wages alone?

What barriers make promising careers difficult to access or sustain?

What would help me remain, advance, and thrive over the long term?

For Communities

Which employers should be engaged to better understand the workforce needs behind these labor market signals?

How do workers, learners, families, and employers experience the opportunities identified in the data?

What existing education, workforce, and community assets could strengthen these pathways?

Whose voices are still missing before designing a workforce strategy?

For Decision Makers

How can labor market analysis, employer engagement, and community listening become part of a single workforce intelligence process?

What additional information is needed to determine whether an opportunity is genuinely accessible, desirable, and sustainable?

How can workforce strategies be informed by both quantitative evidence and the lived experiences of the people they are intended to serve?

Step 4:
Design locally

The same industry may function as an anchor pathway in one county, an emerging opportunity in another, and only a limited opportunity somewhere else. Healthcare may represent one of the strongest opportunities for workforce investment on Hawaiʻi Island while requiring a very different approach on Oʻahu. Construction may justify dedicated workforce infrastructure in one region while being better served through shared partnerships in another. Smaller labor markets may identify promising industries that simply do not exist at a scale capable of supporting stand-alone education or training programs.

These differences are not inconsistencies. They are reflections of how local workforce systems function. Employer mix, workforce size, educational assets, transportation, housing, community priorities, existing partnerships, and regional capacity all influence which strategies are most likely to succeed. Viewed together, these findings suggest that statewide workforce intelligence should not produce standardized workforce solutions. It should help communities make better local decisions.

This is perhaps the most important distinction in the Workforce Understory. The goal is not for every county to pursue the same industries or implement the same programs. The goal is for every community to use a shared understanding of opportunity to design strategies that fit its own economy, workforce, and aspirations.

This leads to the fourth step for recognizing opportunity: Design locally.

The guiding question becomes: “Given what we’ve learned, what makes the most sense for our community?”

Shared evidence should lead to locally designed strategies.
The same opportunity may require a very different response in different communities.

Evidence from the Workforce Understory Data

The industries best positioned to support mobility differ across counties, showing why the same statewide signal may require a different local strategy.
The number of workers already close to a living wage varies by county, shaping both the potential reach and design of local advancement strategies.
The potential earnings gains and broader economic returns from sustained workforce investment differ across local economies.
Access to living-wage openings and the occupation groups generating future demand also vary substantially by county, reinforcing the need to design around local labor-market conditions.

Together, these findings suggest that statewide workforce intelligence becomes most valuable when it helps communities design strategies that reflect their own employers, workforce, assets, and priorities.

Explore the Workforce Understory Data Visualization Library

Why This Matters

No two counties share the same workforce system. Each community begins with a different combination of industries, employers, educational institutions, workforce organizations, infrastructure, geography, and economic realities. Those differences shape not only where opportunity exists, but also what it takes to strengthen it.

Season One suggests that effective workforce strategy is not about replicating the same program across Hawaiʻi. It is about applying a shared framework while designing solutions that reflect local conditions. One community may decide to strengthen healthcare pathways. Another may invest in construction and infrastructure careers. Another may focus on helping incumbent workers advance within hospitality or administrative services.

These are not competing strategies. They are different expressions of the same statewide vision.

This changes how we think about coordination. Statewide alignment does not require local uniformity. Instead, it requires a shared understanding of the challenge, a common approach to recognizing opportunity, and the flexibility for each community to build on its own strengths.

In this way, statewide workforce strategy becomes less about directing local action and more about enabling it. The goal is not for every community to do the same thing. The goal is for every community to move in the same direction. That shift transforms workforce planning from implementing statewide solutions to designing locally grounded pathways that contribute to Hawaiʻi’s shared workforce future.

Questions This Evidence Raises

For Workers

Which industries offer the strongest long-term opportunities where I live?

How might career opportunities differ across counties?

Which local employers are building pathways that align with my goals and experience?

For Communities

Given our unique strengths and constraints, where should we focus first?

Which existing employers, partnerships, and educational assets can we build upon?

What workforce strategy makes the most sense for our community—not just for Hawaiʻi as a whole?

For Decision Makers

How can statewide workforce intelligence support locally designed strategies rather than standardized solutions?

Which workforce investments should be shared across counties, and which should be tailored to local conditions?

What partnerships, governance structures, and ongoing learning processes will help communities adapt as local labor markets continue to evolve?

Looking ahead

Taken together, these four steps suggest that recognizing opportunity is only the beginning of effective workforce strategy. Labor market data can help communities identify promising industries. Scale helps determine where investments might create meaningful impact. Workforce intelligence helps explain why opportunities are emerging and whether they reflect the aspirations of workers, employers, and communities. Local design helps translate those insights into strategies that fit the unique strengths and realities of each place.

By the end of this process, communities should have a clearer understanding of where they are most likely to make a difference. But recognizing opportunity does not create economic mobility on its own. The next challenge is turning promising opportunities into pathways that people can actually access and navigate throughout their careers.

That requires more than good data. It requires coordinated action. It requires employers, educators, workforce organizations, public agencies, philanthropy, and communities working together to strengthen the conditions that allow more people to learn, work, and thrive in Hawaiʻi.

The next chapter explores how those pathways can be intentionally designed—and what it takes to build workforce systems that transform opportunity into lasting economic mobility.

Field Guide Introduction

What is the Workforce Understory Field Guide and how do I use it?

Chapter 1: The Workforce Challenge

What problem are we actually trying to solve?

Chapter 2: Access to Opportunity

How is opportunity experienced across Hawaiʻi’s workforce?

Chapter 3: Recognizing Opportunity

You are here!

Chapter 4: Building Mobility Pathways

How do communities turn opportunity into lasting economic mobility?

Chapter 5: The Next Questions

What questions remain unanswered, and what workforce intelligence will Hawaiʻi need to continue learning together?