Hawaiʻi reimposes job hunts as a requirement for unemployment insurance

Beth Giesting, who leads the Hawaiʻi Budget & Policy Center, said she is concerned about how the requirement will affect parents who can’t go back to work because they don’t have child care.

The pandemic led to a shrinkage in available child care spots and many Hawaiʻi schools are still not back to full in-person learning. The public school year ends next week.

“There are some parents who are just not going to be able to rejoin the workforce if they also have child care responsibilities so there needs to be some leniency around that,” Giesting said.

Perreira-Eustaquio said at the press conference that the state’s unemployment system doesn’t have exceptions for people who can’t go back to work due to child care responsibilities, but that exception does exist for residents receiving pandemic unemployment assistance.

Giesting questioned that rule.

“But if the governor is making the call, then why can’t he impose some flexibility around that? I think it will be really bad for working families who don’t have any options for kids right now,” she said.

Economists from the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization found that found that 16,000 people left Hawaiʻi’s labor force during the pandemic.

Thousands have left the state, and researchers found that lack of child care is preventing many women from returning to work.