Oahu Job Market for Professionals (Honolulu, Hilo: transfer, college, income)

[kcwiiguy]

I hear people talk about how bad the job market is in Hawaii. But, I get the feeling people are talking about retail or service industry jobs.

Does anyone have any input on the job market for professional work? I have an MBA and my wife is an experienced nurse. We'd be open to civilian work with the military or in the private sector.

[HonuMan]

My wife and I have wondered the same thing. She's from Hawaii but has been here on the mainland for the past 11 years. We eventually want to move to Hawaii if it's financially possible. She'll be eligible for retirement from her current government job in 6 years and wants to have her own crafts business after that -- mostly for fun, but any additional income would be nice! I'm younger and will need to keep working for at least another decade. I have a master's degree in Organizational Development and work for a management consulting firm, and my strategy is to move into a position that I could do remotely from anywhere, as many of our employees do. No job is bulletproof, however, so if I'm no longer with my current company in 6 years, I wonder what other opportunities would be open to me in Hawaii in consulting. Our friends and relatives in Hawaii have told us that most business-professional type jobs would be in Honolulu, although they don't know how many jobs like that exist, because we don't know anyone in an industry related to mine.

We do have a friend from Nevada who moved to Honolulu after graduating from college in accounting, found a job as a financial advisor, transferred to Hilo a few years later because he preferred the slower pace of the Big Island, and became quite successful. What is crucial is that he immediately "got" the Hawaiian people and culture and fell in love with them -- he learned to speak Hawaiian, became an expert hula dancer, mastered pidgin to such an extent that my wife assumed he was a local boy until he told her otherwise, and participated in civic organizations and events. (He currently lives in Vietnam, where he was offered a job that was too good to pass up.)

I've heard others on this board say that nursing jobs are relatively plentiful.