Economy & Workforce
Unemployment Rate
Current rank: #3 of 50 states (2.5%, 2026)
Hawaiʻi has ranked in the top 10 in roughly two thirds of the past 40 years, with a weak stretch in the late 1990s when the rank reached #46. The sharpest break was 2020, when tourism dependence drove unemployment to 11.7 percent and the rank to #49. Recovery was gradual: #26 in 2022, back inside the top 10 by 2024, and #2 in both 2025 and 2026. That matches the best showing since 2018, though short of the #1 ranks of 2017 and the mid-2000s.