Senate Standing Committee on Labor and Technology

Great afternoon everyone and happy New Year. Will the Committee on Labor and Technology please come to order? Want to welcome all of you, those participating online and those watching. It's a new year new Committee for me. So we're excited to get to work and hear about updates from our various departments.

So with joining me, with me as well is Senator Moriwakee and a few Members also might be joining us as well for this informational briefing. Just a few housekeeping announcements. This is the 3:00pm Senate Committee on Labor and Technology Informational briefing. Today is January 122026 and we are in Conference Room 225 at the Hawaii State Capitol.

Welcome to our Committee Members and those presenters that are here in person and those participating or listening in online. There will be no public testimony at this time. The content including the hearing notice can be found on the Legislature's website.

The live video stream and archive of this hearing can be found also on the Senate's YouTube channel today. The purpose of this informational briefing is for the Department of Human Resources Development, also known as D. Herd and the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations DLIR to share with the Committee updates in the following areas.

First, we'll begin with a presentation by D. Herd on the following hiring practices, recruitment and retention, vacancy rate updates for state departments, classification and compensation and Operation Hire Hawaii and then followed by D. Herd, we'll have DLIR present on the following HELE IMUA program and summer youth programs.

With that we'll begin with Director Hashimoto and Deputy Director of Furuto. Welcome and aloha. And if you could just introduce yourself for the record please.

Good afternoon and Aloha Chair Elefante Senator Moriwaki. I'm Brianna Hashimoto, Director of the Department of Human Resources Development. Here with me today is Deputy Director Brian Ferruto. Thank you for the opportunity to provide a briefing on status of our recruitment and hiring and retention programs.

I wanted to start just by we have a slide presentation which your staff will help us through. But I wanted to give just a quick overview of the state's hiring process. I think many of you know that our hiring process starts in the departments.

They decide when they want to fill a vacant position and typically they recruit internally first so they offer a position to their own current civil service employees before they look for outside to bring in somebody from the outside. So that's typically where the recruitment process would start.

And then if they're unsuccessful or they have a series of filling a position, say they want to fill a manager, maybe their next level of supervisors apply and it creates a domino effect. So when they get to the basically the end of the totem pole and they need to hire from outside, they've exhausted their own internal candidates.

Then they come to D Herd and they submit a requisition in our electronic recruitment platform, NeoGov, and then we take it from there. We either, if we have an existing list of qualified applicants, we'll turn that list over to them within about 48 hours.

If we don't have a list for that particular job, then we'll post it on our website and take applications from the General public. And we call that open competitive recruitment. So D Herd does most of the open competitive recruitment to the General public.

However, we do have departments who have certain jobs that they're delegated to take on that work. And so they'll, they'll do all of the recruitment themselves. They'll post it on our website, they'll take the applications in, do the screening and refer them down to the managers for interview and selection.

And then the departments also handle the onboarding process. So just recently, actually this week, we have a deadline, a soft deadline, for departments to be fully transitioned to using NEOGA for the onboarding process.

So we're hopeful that by moving to an electronic onboarding that we will save time, it'll be faster because applicants can access this portal at their convenience once they've received an employment offer and do all of their paperwork before they start.

Yes.

So thank you. I know that we're always asking you about the timelines and so when you do the external recruitment like this posting, the 48 hour posting, how often can a Department pull from that list and what is the process there?

Because you could get a list, but then how does the Department access it for actually hiring for my position.

So it really depends on how the job is posted. Some jobs we post will just take say the first 50 applicants and so it could close at any time. We have some jobs that are super popular. Recently we posted for conservation and resource enforcement officers for the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

We took in over 700 applications within a day or two. So it may close once we've reached the number. The target number of applications. If are not so lucky to get as many applications, it could be be a couple of weeks that we'll leave it open and then we'll start screening and referring them.

Or it could be continuous recruitment. Do you have a number? Like a magic number, like if you have 20 or 30 or whatever? Not really.

We work with the Department to decide. Well, they'll tell us how many applications they want. So for a big recruitment, they may want 100. And for some, if it's just one position, they may say we want the first 10 or 12 or 15. So it's really up to them to tell us how many applicants they want.

And then they, once they're referred that list, then they go ahead and contact the applicants.

So in the case of do care officers, did they come up with a list of target number of applications to provide to you folks? Yes. Okay, right, because so that's on the departments, right?

Yes, because we don't want to overwhelm them. Right. There's only so much capacity in terms of going through all of these applications. So we want to make sure that we service them and we don't overwhelm them, that they can move through the process efficiently.

So what's posted is what comes in or are you folks screening and then posting so that when they see somebody they interview and they see somebody they want, can they hire right away or is there some other process that's involved?

So when we post a job, when we put out a recruitment announcement, we receive applications in then D Herd does the screening. So we check each application to make sure that the applicant is qualified, that they meet the minimum qualification requirements. And then we what we call certify a list to back to the Department.

So they receive and then they receive it electronically. So they receive the list of qualified applicants and their applications.

So you're saying, for example, In Docare the 700 applicants they all had already screened through those or you just giving the first hundred that you've screened?

So we just opened it, I think on January 1st or 2nd, we opened that recruitment and so we took in 775 applications and just know that it was for multiple islands. So so many for Oahu, fewer for the neighbor islands. But we haven't yet screened those yet. So we're still in the process of screen screening.

And then once we've screened them, then we will send the list of all the qualified applicants.

So some of them may not be deemed qualified, but however many we we determine meet the qualification requirements, we'll send all of those applicants to the Department of Land and Natural Resources and they will contact the applicants to schedule interviews and then go through the selection process.

And they can actually hire. Yes, once they like.

So somebody they've been treating. Right. Because they've all been vetted in terms of D Herd meeting qualifications. So they do the onboarding process, as I mentioned. So basically my point is that There's a lot of touch points where the ball is technically in the department's court. Right.

They decide when they're going to recruit and only when they can't fill it internally, then D Herd gets involved, and then we pass it back off to them to do the interviews and the onboarding. So it's sort of the hiring process in its most simple form.

The other thing I wanted to talk about was our annual vacancy report. That was a topic that's always of interest. Our vacancy report is an annual report that we present to the Legislature, sort of various snapshots of recruitment and initiatives that were undergoing in order to incentivize folks to come to work for the state.

And some of the takeaways from this last report that was just submitted to the Legislature last month is that the number of applications has grown incredibly up 27%. So last year, we received just over 30,000. This past year, in FY25, we received over 41,000. That's a tremendous workload increase for our staff.

And thankfully, to the legislature's credit, you folks funded positions in our recruitment and staffing area. So we were generally somewhat prepared for that, although a lot of our staff are still new and learning our software, learning the policies and procedures.

But I feel much more confident that we're going to be able to keep up with the demand for state jobs. Because of your job or how are you getting such a surge? Some of it has to do with the operation Hire Hawaii, which I'll touch on at the end.

We got over almost 8,000 applications just for the Ojai jobs alone. And a lot of it, I think, is our marketing. We have a small team of individuals that are currently part of our ARPA project, recruiters who have been considering all types of marketing.

We've done the bus, we've done the theaters, we've done malls, we've done, uh, athletic events. We're using LinkedIn. Recently, we signed a contract with NeoGov to use their attract feature, which basically allows us to reach out directly to applicants who have a profile in NeoGov.

So, sort of like LinkedIn, if you have a platform, sorry, profile in NeoGov, we can. And we know what your credentials are, what you've applied for. If we have jobs that we think would be of interest, we are able to communicate with those.

So, may I just pause there? So, on your applications received, you talked about surge, but the surge is only comparing two fiscal years, is that correct?

Yes, but we do have all of the Act 57 or vacancy reports on our website. So you can see how the trend has gone.

What has. Anecdotally, what have. I mean, without having that in front of me right now, what have you noticed?

It's been growing pretty steadily by 3 to 5,000 each year. There was, I think, only one previous year. We've been keeping stats since we started using NeoGov around 2006. And based on the information I have, there's only one other year that we were exceeding the number of this last year.

And then on the screening side, as you're receiving applications, I know you have like a team of screeners, so how many personnel do you have to screen?

I think right now we're close to 20. Okay, so 20 people doing 41,000 applications. But that's not enough. It probably is enough. You know, it's. There's. We're hoping it's enough. It's. They're getting caught up too. So at 1.0 in time when we got a lot.

A lot of applications in a very short period of time, it's very difficult to keep up. But the staff have been doing a really good job of trying to clear out the backlog. So as of today, we are very close to being almost current with screening.

So I think electronics, so it's faster. Or how are you getting so many done by so few? I mean, how are you screening so.

We can get these out the door? Well, they're just focusing, you know, heads down and diligently pushing it out as quickly as they possibly can. I think we understand. We've listened to the complaints that, you know, the criticism of D. Her taking too long.

And so we put all of our resources in trying to speed up the process. Not only the screening part, but making sure that when we get a requisition that we don't have a current list of applicants for that we're able to post it quickly.

So every touch point that D Herd's involved, we've been trying to speed up that process to make it more efficient.

Are you using like, AI or anything like that to help with the screening process or programs for that?

Maybe Director can. Can speak to that. We. It's.

I'll let him. As of right now, no chair. Other states looked at that in terms of their hiring.

Other states have looked at it, but surprisingly very few actually are using that right now. There are a few states. It really is hit or miss. There's a lot of private information. Sure. And I think, of course, there's a. There's a concern with the breaches and such.

But it is something that we are looking at, maybe not the full use of AI, but some sort of tool that would allow us to move the applications a little bit more quickly.

Thank you. One of the complexities in screening is that our qualification requirements. There are many different ways that an individual can be deemed qualified. We call it substitution. So we have perhaps a bachelor's degree, but that's not. You don't have to have a bachelor's degree. You can substitute. Substitute experience for the degree.

And then in some cases, we also substitute coursework or advanced degrees for the minimum qualification requirements. So our staff have to look at each of those different options when they're screening an application. So it is very technical and sometimes.

Time consuming, and sometimes staff may not have the expertise in a particular area that you're looking for. MQs as well. Right. So how does. I mean, is there like a checklist for each. I mean, how does.

Typically. They typically do have a level of expertise and being able to identify experience, an applicant's experience with what our qualification requirements are. So. And we also have, you know, supervisors and managers to help. There's a question we can also ask the applicant.

You know, please, you know, expand on the experience that you've indicated because we're unsure whether you meet the qualifications. We also have subject matter experts in the departments.

So the MQs are not just, you know, what D Herd has decided is appropriate, but we have managers and staff in the departments that we could reach out to if we're unsure.

Out of your 28 folks that are screening, how many of them are supervisors?

Three. We have a branch manager, and then we have two working supervisors who each have a team of examiners under them.

Okay, and you're fine with that amount?

It's what we're.

It's working for now.

Okay. We have so two of our budget requests. One of our two budget requests is to make permanent a small team of recruiters within our staffing division. And along with that team would come a third supervisor, basically.

Was this the group that you got federal funds for? Yes. So you do need these positions. And where are we on the federal funding for?

So the ARPA funds will lapse. That's why you need to come in for. So in September, we're asking for three. The team is currently five. But we understand that, you know, funds are tight. And so we're asking for what we feel is the bare minimum to keep that part of the project moving forward.

And I think that, you know, the results kind of speak for themselves. We are Getting a lot of traction. What I'm hearing from departments as well is that the caliber of applicants over the last year or so is very good. We're getting a lot of a very good application.

May I ask, on your recruitment part, you mentioned a couple of, you know, options. What about social media, like meta or other parts? I'll give you an example. I know I just did a social media post to do internships and you'll be surprised at the feedback and interest on that.

So, you know, in terms of ads or anything like that, for at least, you know, some of your positions, we.

Have, we've actually used it over the last year mostly around events. If we have like Operation Hire Hawaii, a big job fair, we will pay for ads on to draw people to. Come to the event. And we just actually talked about it this morning and putting more resources in that area because it seems to get good traction.

Do you have an ongoing media program, social media program you pay for or how do you do that?

No, it's basically Erin, my assistant, who's our social media expert. She sees our one man social media team or one woman social media team. And so in the coming year, I anticipate that we're going to put more research. You have a budget for that? We got funds last year, along with the seven positions.

We also got monies to do the marketing part. So this, it's really important that we have the team in order to execute the contracts. And part of the track feature is it allows us to have a designated kind of recruiter function where it's all that outreach. But along with that, it's important, as you know, to be responsive.

You can't just let the messages sit there. You got to have somebody who's constantly monitoring the feedback and responding and keeping folks engaged. All right, if you can continue on. Thank you. Go ahead. So in addition, part of the Act 57 report is a bunch. Sorry, I'm gonna. I. We're.

We're intending to call it the vacancy report and stop calling it the Act 57 report because that was, you know, six years ago. So the vacancy report, one of the tables that's in there is this sort of snapshot in terms of the actual vacancy rate.

And you can see for this last year, the vacancy rate stayed at 24%. But if you, if you look at the second column, the filled positions, we actually added almost 300 more civil service employees than we had the year before.

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Attention recess.

Okay. Reconvening our informational briefing. For those watching online. You probably heard the fire alarms going off that's been going on all day here at the Capitol, and it's been a false alarm. So if in the event that we do have to evacuate due to an emergency, we will proceed and do that. But for now, please continue.

Okay, great. Thank you. So, as I was saying, the overall vacancy rate remained at 24%. However, there's two things I wanted to point out. First of all, the overall number of filled positions did increase by almost 300, which means we filled the 1169 positions that became vacant.

So we, of course, every year have a number of employees who either retire or resign. So we replaced all of those and added almost 300 new filled positions. So if we had not added 485 positions to the count, our vacancy rate would have been 22%. So I feel like we're making progress.

There are just some things that are out of our control, like the total number of civil service positions.

The other thing that I'd like to point out, as you can see in the second to the right column, and it indicates how many of those vacancies are being requested to fill through D Herd, and it's not very high, we're at 28%, which means there's a lot of vacant positions that don't come to D Herd.

The request to fill are from the departments. Yes.

Yes. So we don't tell them when to fill. They tell us when they're ready.

Are they filling the positions or internally? Or are they just. There's nothing sending you a request.

They're not recruiting through D Herd. So some of it could be that they are working through the internal recruitment process and they haven't exhausted their internal capacity yet. Or it could be that they're doing something else with the position, either going through a reorganization or intending to redescribe it to something else.

But I am concerned that this is a rather low number that we're being asked to fill.

Well, just on this slide, Director. So the second. The. Was it the third column on vacant positions from 2019 to November of last year? Right. That has sort of fluctuated within the 1818 to 24% range. But your field positions have sort of gone a little down from 14,000 to 13.

So it's kind of averaging around, you Know2025 %. Right. In terms of your vacant position. So you mentioned about. There's. There's sort of an unknown. I think you may have mentioned this. An unknown factor or is There is, there. Is there.

Basically what I'm getting at is there are there trends or things that point to why you're not able to fill or departments are not able to fill positions?

I don't think it's any one specific issue. You can see the first column, right, is the total number of civil service positions. And some of that I believe, especially some of the old numbers. I'm not really confident that they were. All. I don't know what the word is, that they were true positions.

I think we've done a lot of work over the last, especially two to three years to encourage the departments to clean up their position counts. So I feel like the numbers prior to, say, maybe 2022, I'm less comfortable. That was obviously before my time.

So I can't really speak to the fact if all of those, say 17,002 positions at the end of 2022, whether, you know, those were really scrubbed or not.

But we've tried to put a lot more effort in the last few years to having departments clean up either positions that should have been abolished and just for whatever reason weren't in HRMs and try to drill down to.

And vacant positions are funded, not just a position.

So many of them are not. So we do have a bunch of those vacancies which are unbudgeted and unfunded.

Is there a breakdown in your vacancy report that talks about what's funded and not.

Not for all 4000 vacancies. What is attached to the vacancy report is a drill down of the 400485 vacancies that are more than four years or older.

So for those that are, we consider to be kind of, you know, stale, those positions, we do ask the departments to tell us what the status is and why they're not filling. And you'll see if you look at that attachment, that not a whole lot, but a fair number of them are unbudgeted, unfunded.

So that's the authorization, though, under past law, or has that changed where you can delete those positions if in fact they're over four years or whatever, three years or four years old?

We have not. We've made recommendations in each of these Act 57 reports or, sorry, vacancy reports, with the exception of last year, De Herd did not make a recommendation because the Department of Budget and Finance and the governor's office went and went through the list and they made a recommendation for which position should be abolished.

So we did not. But in prior years we did. And that information is actually on like the second Page of the. The full report. And we've from historically recommended between 100 and 150 positions to be abolished. But the Legislature for whatever reason has only typically abolished a handful.

But have departments been responsive to DE Heard to tell you, hey, we need these positions or not? I mean has there been communication on that level?

They, they typically do respond back, but again we're only focused on those 485 or whatever number it happens to be for that year that are four years or older. So we don't ask them to Respond for all 4,000 and the status, just, just the very old ones.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, so move on to the next slide. So this is just a snapshot by Department of the Trends in terms of their filled and vacant positions and the total number of civil service vacancies and their percentage over the last three years.

So you can see the progression from 2020 moving from right to left from 20232024 and then this last 2025 update. So several departments are making good progress. Progress Accounting and General Services, Attorney Generals, Defense, D. Herd, my own Department and Transportation are. Have all kind of broken through and are under that 20% mark.

And we have a couple of departments that are still struggling. And, and you know, so we, we'd like. HMS is Human. Human Services. Human Services, right. So this is of course just 1.0 in time. So this changes sort of regularly. I know for De Herd, we. Although it says 18, we have 18 vacancies.

We actually have several that are committed. I think as of Today we have 11 positions that we. 11 vacancies in our Department. So.

So like with corrections, right. I would assume that's more the adult correctionals officers.

Right. They have a big chunk of those. I think we have information on that specifically on it on the next slide.

But for example, Labor Department, the unemployment insurance, it's temporary. So you're counting only permanent civil service, not temporary?

Yes, we're only counting their regular civil service positions, although some of those may be like split funded or they may be federally funded. But we're only counting what they've told us are their regular staff.

So they also have hundreds if not thousands of temporary student hire and internship and what we call surge positions that they would only fill in the event that. So you don't count them? We don't count those. We back those out. Okay, next slide.

These are the classes of work where we have the total, highest total number of vacancies. So always top of the list is office assistant. But you can see again we're trying to give you the trends, you can see from the rightmost column the number that was from 2023 and the percentage. So we've made good progress.

All of those classes of work or job titles that are bolded are the job titles where we've seen good progress in terms of reducing the total number of vacancies.

So in the case of, you know, for ACOs. Right. And working with DCR, so being that that was my prior subject matter jurisdiction that I had for the first couple years, I know they've been doing more recruit classes. Yes. So that helps. But getting qualified.

And so I've attempted to work with the Director to say, okay, are you going to these places to recruit? You know, because you might find qualified candidates where you might not be looking, that other states, you know, have done that has been successful. So I know that's more on the Department.

But what has been sort of D Herd's involvement?

So we've been working closely with DCR to speed up the recruitment. So I believe right now they're doing it six times a year. At 1.0 in time they were doing it maybe, maybe half that. So over the last year or more, they've been basically recruiting every other month, which I think.

And they've also shortened the time that they take to do their initial training. So they're getting them into the facilities much faster. And I think they're seeing the results of that positivity. So engineers, eligibility, workers, those are a couple of classes where they were making progress. Information technology.

Those are all bands A through D. So all the way from managers down to entry level account clerks, nurses. The other column that I would want you to note is that middle column labeled number of qualified applicants. So that is the number of referrals that D Herd has made to departments for those classes of work.

So you can kind of see, for example, office assistant. Although we have 382 vacancies, we've actually qualified and referred 1360 qualified applicants to departments. So where you see a big applicant pool and still vacancies that then, you know, that's, that that's concerning some of them. We don't, we don't get a lot of applications.

And so it's kind of understandable why. They'Re still so in the entry level. Office assistant. I mean, I think we try to look at the MQs and everything to be able to have that as an entry point.

Especially like in your internships, you can move into an office assistant and then move up from there into different career ladders. So why Is it that there are so many applicants and the departments aren't taking them for their vacancies? What is the disconnect there?

So office assistant is one of the classes of work that we have on wiki Wiki. So what wiki Wiki means is that we take in applications pretty much continuously and we qualify applicants at least every two weeks. We're constantly screening them and qualifying them.

And we send a letter to the applicant to tell them you're qualified as in say an office assistant three and these are the departments that are recruiting and hiring and these are the contact individuals in each of those departments. And you can go and contact them directly and schedule an interview.

So we've kind of flipped it, whereas earlier I mentioned. Right. We refer the list and the Department contacts them. Applicant with Wiki Wiki. We flip it and basically we tell the applicant you're qualified. Here are the hiring managers in each Department who are have positions that they need to fill.

Go ahead and call them and schedule an interview. The applicant isn't applying, so they're applying. But they also are empowered to go to the Department and schedule an interview. So they're not doing that. So some of that. Some of that I think perhaps is they're not doing that.

But then the Department can also have access to the list of qualified applicants. So departments can also contact them directly.

Okay. On this vacancy sheet I'm just going to ask this. You know, oftentimes, right. People they want to, but maybe the pay doesn't match up. And I know all that's done by collective bargaining and whatnot. So has Deherd look at, you know, repricing, reclassification or that.

Or is that more on the union side to come up with that proposal? I'm just looking at some of these positions, right. Because that could be a hindrance for some folks wanting to apply.

It could. We have several pay programs in place to address recruitment and retention challenges. One of his, one of them is called flex hiring. That's of the easiest and most convenient for departments and it's delegated. Departments can use it whenever it's appropriate.

And basically for positions in bargaining units 3 and 4, which are clerical or white collar and white collar supervisors and BU13 which are professionals, they can, if they have an applicant who exceeds the minimum qualification requirements, basically they have excess experience.

But say, for example, the job is an accountant three and it requires 18 months of accountant work. But this person has five years that additional experience, they can credit that employee with basically offering them a higher step so they don't have to start at entry.

They can start actually anywhere from entry up to the midpoint of the salary schedule. And the Department can offer the. That higher pay to somebody who's, who's exceeds the minimum qualifications. The Department can do that without having to come back to dear. Yes, right, right.

So that's, that's certain positions in certain. If the applicant is overly qualified. Yes, but based on that schedule.

So that's the easiest pay program to exercise. We also have shortage. So if there is a labor market shortage in a particular class of work, we can incentivize recruitment by adding a differential. So the base pay is still the base pay, but we can add an additional extra amount to attract individuals to apply for those jobs.

And how does that approval work that comes to Deherd? Because we do look at the recruitment history to make sure there, in fact, is a documented recruitment challenge. Either we don't have a good applicant pool or we are not able to retain folks. There's, it's, you know, a revolving door.

So some of the jobs on this list do have shortage. For example, social workers, especially in child welfare, we have a differential for those. I'm trying to think of any others at the moment too. Engineers, we actually did a separate salary schedule that we negotiated with HGA to make their pay very competitive with the Federal Government.

But in General cases, it's usually the labor union that would come and make that request or the departments, it's usually the Department.

So it's the departments who reach out to us because they have to Fund it. So they tell us we're having recruitment challenges. This is our recruitment history and we would like to pay more.

Then we look at it, we look at comparables and we work with the Department to figure out what we can afford and what, what's appropriate.

Because one of the easiest case rate is the Department of Law Enforcement. Right. And competing with now the county to, you know, have law enforcement officers and to fill that. But deputy sheriffs, if they're coming in, they're coming in at a much, you know, lower than their counterparts as a metropolitan police officer at the county.

So departments could look into vacancy funding to fill positions. Right?

In that sense, no, they still need to go. We still need to identify it as a difficult to fill or a labor shortage position. The challenge with law enforcement right now is that they're only recruiting once a year. So when they do recruit, we get 3300 to 400 applications.

So we can't really say that there's a shortage without recruiting more often. And having a demonstrated record of a difficulty to fill. Because right now we get a healthy applicant pool. They just need to recruit like DCR more frequently in order to keep up with the child.

I have a question. For example, in social worker, where you've got fewer applicants than you have positions to fill.

So there's a footnote at the bottom. And I'm glad you asked that question because we typically recruit social workers and human service professionals together because the job is essentially the same, but you can only call yourself a social worker if you have the master's in social work work. So oftentimes we recruit them either.

Either or depending upon their credentials. So the reason that it's such a low number is because that particular recruitment, they were solely recruiting for social workers. But most of the recruitments are for both. And so the number at the bottom, the little footnote at the bottom says that there were 220 qualified applicants when we recruited together.

So human service professional is also found that, the third line down. So we had 172 just for HSP. We had 13 when it's just social worker, but when it's combined we had 220.

So you kind of have to all add that up. But still the 13 would be social workers with a degree. And so you still, regardless of whether you combined it or not, you would still be short on having to have seven vacancies.

Well, I don't understand. Not really, because many of those what we call social worker vacancies, they could fill with an hsp, a human service professional, you kind of have to look at the. No, you just have to look at them all kind of sort of together.

I know that's a little bit confusing, but you have to look at the applicant, all three numbers to sort of get a picture of the entire applicant pool. It just so happens that probably one position they solely filled as a social worker, and that's why that number is low.

Do you.

So just in General, do you see where you have these discrepancies to do a little deeper dive into why you have vacancies that you can't fill and what might be some problems, compensation or require MQs or looking at that so that you could at least fill, maybe even at the lower level, but having a career ladder moving.

So I'm going to get to that if I can come back to that question. It's a great question, but I do have a slide that speaks to that and it's part of our classification and compensation study. So go on to the next slide. One of the things you focus on. Were interested in was our retention rates.

And so we did a look back. This is a new table that we've added to the vacancy report which shows our overall retention, which for this last year was 9.54%. And I know just looking at the percentages, it may not mean a whole lot unless you have something to compare it to.

And so I can share with you. It's not part of the report because we get this information through our contacts at the Hawaii Employers Council. But we know for the private sector positions, the typical retention turnover rate is closer to 15%. So the message is we do have.

We do very well with retaining state employees and it has been going down. Employee. Sorry, that's. It's HR lingo. Abbreviation. It just means employee. Employee. That's our shorthand for employee. Yeah, sorry about that. So if you could go to the next slide. This is just a visual for. In terms of each department's turnover rate.

So you can see where the average is. Is that horizontal line across the middle. And then the departments that are under and over, sort of where we would like them to be.

Is this turnover. They're just resigning and. Or retiring. Or is that combined? It's combined.

It's both. Okay. Okay. And then. So getting back to your question about where there might be opportunities for creating a more smooth career ladder in state government.

We are exceedingly grateful to the Legislature last year for appropriating $1.75 million to the Department of Human Resources Development to hire a consultant to work with us on reviewing the whole makeup of civil service, our structure, the leveling, the minimum qualification requirements. The. What else? Just how we. The pathways I mentioned the MQs, all of it.

And just. We want to work on, you know, what are the best practices moving forward. Do we need as many levels? Is there a disconnect between getting folks in the door and then moving them in terms of a career ladder? So we're in the process. Process right now. We've.

We've sent the draft of the contract to the vendor we've selected and we hope to have a contract very soon so we can get moving on that. This is the. The timetable that was part of the Bill that the Legislature passed last year relative to. Well, do you remember what the funding appropriation was this for, Director?

You mean the source of funds? Yeah, the funding.

Total appropriation for doing the study.

1.75 million.

Okay, thank you. Yes. So you can see our next deliverable is an interim progress report which we hope to have available to the Legislature next month, assuming we can get the contract executed pretty shortly.

And is this for the total civil service system or is it taking part?

It is. That's the plan. You know, it's a lot though, as you folks, you have heard me say, we have over 1400 unique civil service job titles. So that is a big ask for even for a vendor. And I'm sure they'll use some AI to try to digest all of that information.

And so we're hopeful that we can do all 1400 plus classes of work. But if not, that will be part of our, you know, report.

So is the vendor looking at, you know, there's been discussion in the university with broadband or, you know, looking at combining because you have so many specific classes and can that be organized in a more sort of categories or something where you don't have so many classes?

That's the problem. 1400. Right. There's additional work in maintaining 1400 right. Classes of work.

And that's part of the department's frustration.

And be looking at the structure, that whole. Yes, yes. They're going to look at the whole structure. Right. Yeah.

Because it's too many classes. And part of the recommendations would be also looking at pricing at some of these classes too.

Right. As well. Right. So compensation is the other part and making sure that we, we have compensation tools that are responsive to where we feel like we have deficiencies. And it may be that we need to take some, we need to do something else. Right.

Separate salary schedules, which we've done, for example, with engineers, whether we need to kind of carve out certain careers, that.

Right now it's just on the department's request to you. Yes. If they want to have a separate salary schedule, if they want to reprice for compensation.

So repricing is really an internal comparison. So repricing is almost never the answer to a compensation challenge. That's our internal alignment so that we know that all professional jobs, for example, that are all trainees with no experience, that they're all priced in same. And that's how we defend civil service.

Because one of the tenets of civil service is that there's equal pay for equal work. And without having a consistent pricing policy and consistent pricing across similar careers, then we cannot defend the state in terms of equal pay for equal work. So pricing is almost never the answer.

It's only when a job changes significantly that pricing may be appropriate. And that does happen where a job will evolve, it will become naturally more complex. And that's when we use repricing is when the duties and responsibilities have exceeded.

The comparisons go back to compensation. So, you know, we lose to the city, we lose to the private sector. What, if any, or can there be added looking at comparables in the process so that you have a process of how, I don't know if you start consolidating these classes.

And it's much more manageable where you can look at comparables with the private sector, with the counties, and be able to have something where we're not being being whipsawed by the counties. Give this much. Now, we either lose employees, which we have done, or we're not keeping up.

So we can't recruit because they're going somewhere else than here.

And so I'm just.

Wondering whether in your contract or as you look at compensation, what is the process or what is the procedure you're looking at so that we can be comparable? More of a level playing field than it seems to be today.

So compensation is complex, it's not any one factor. But we do look at where we have a lot of vacancies and try to determine whether it is situation of not paying enough. And we do heavily rely on departments.

Right, because it's their budget that comes into play and whether they can Fund the additional amount if we increase pay. I mentioned earlier shortage. The thing about shortage is if we apply shortage and we hire somebody and we give them a shortage differential that stays with them for as long as they stay in that job.

So we have to be prepared to fund that for, you know, potentially 30 years or more if they stay in that job for that long. So we don't do it lightly and we do it in consultation with the departments and with the union as well.

But in answer to your question, in terms of the competitiveness with the other jurisdictions, we all have the same salary schedules. We do have comparability. So, what folks are oftentimes are comparing is apples and oranges. Could be because our job titles don't necessarily always line up. So-

But when you drill down and you look at the responsibilities, there's usually a difference between a job in the city and a job in the state that warrants that higher pay. So although the job titles may look very similar, the duties and responsibilities are not always the same.

So you really have to do a little bit extra analysis to figure out whether there is, it is more, I would say most of the times when we do look at it closely, it's not, it's a situation where an employee has, has gotten a promotion when they've gone to the city.

And therefore if it is a higher level job, they, they should get more money. And it's very seldom that it's the same level for more money. Unless they're using some kind of like shortage or some kind of incentive.

Okay, thank you. We look forward to your results of your study.

What is the time frame? You're going to give us a report or no? So the 27th? 2027? You're not giving us anything.

So we have- So the draft recommendations are around December. So I imagine that you'll hear from us around that time. And then the final report, of course, not until next session. But again, that's exceedingly ambitious for the amount of work that we're asking the vendor.

But Your vendors said they could do it.

Well, they selected a vendor.

So they said they could do it right, given this time frame?

Right, so as I've told my staff, I would rather do it right and get it right than do it fast and get it wrong. So lastly, you wanted an update on Operation Hire Hawaii. So we're really pleased with the traction that we've gotten through Operation Hire Hawaii.

We've received over 8,000 applications. This was as of last week. We've opened 177 recruitments and closed 127, which means we filled jobs. We've made 203 hires. And I know there are more, even from our own Department. We have a few that have later start dates. We don't record them until the individual has actually started work.

So we know we have a few more hires that are in the pipeline.

Could you explain to the general public and to those that might be new, what's the difference between Operation Hire Hawaii and going through the normal process?

Okay, sure. So I mentioned earlier, the process typically is that we post a job. We take in applications, DHRD screens to make sure that that applicant meets minimum qualification requirements. And then once we confirm that, we send a list of all the applicants to the Department. That's the traditional method.

Operation Hire Hawaii kind of flipped the process in that we again, we do post jobs, but you'll find it on our website under the Operation Hire Hawaii link and banner. And we still take in applications. We still. But we don't screen for minimum qualification requirements ahead of time.

So each day that we receive applications in response to one of these Operation Hire Hawaii recruitments, the very next day we turn that application around to the department so it goes directly to the hiring agency and they do a preliminary screening.

They look at the application to see that generally they feel like this person meets the qualification requirements, and then they refer it to the hiring manager and they proceed with the interview.

And the idea is only once they are intending to make a selection, they will refer that candidate, they'll send it back to DHRD, and they'll say, okay, we want to hire this individual. Can you do a final confirmation of the MQs? And that we agreed to do within a day.

And so what have you been finding now? That that sort of is in reverse with Operation Hire. Do most of the applicants meet MQs?

So I would say not necessarily. I don't know what that percentage is. I think just in General, we. We find that maybe half of applicants meet the MQs for jobs in just in General. And I don't know why the Operation Hire Hawaii jobs would be any different, really. But it just, it just flips the process.

So we're not holding it up to screen first. We're actually screening only the selectee at the end. But having said that, we do eventually screen the entire applicant pool so that if other agencies are hiring for the same job, we can refer them to other vacancies.

So maybe, maybe DCR is using Operation Hire Hawaii for a social worker job. But we know there are social worker vacancies in other agencies. We can refer them, we can refer that applicant pool to other departments as well.

And then. Are you planning to have more hiring events in 2026? Because I don't see it on this slide.

Yes. So we are, we are planning to do other events and please do let us know.

I know, I think on social media, Erin does a wonderful job of posting that out and getting that out there, because I'm sure many of us would be happy to share that information out to our constituencies.

So they have to come to the hiring event in order to be part of.

No, no, they can, they can apply online in response to those designated Operation Hire Hawaii recruitments.

But it's only certain, right. Depending on which agencies want to participate in this.

Right. So what we're finding is they're using it selectively for jobs that either are, you know, critical to fill or they feel like they have the capacity to do that straight screening and they want to fast track.

So the whole idea about Operation Hire Hawaii is we want to be able to make a conditional job offer within as little as 14 days. And that's why we turn the applications around so quickly and we commit to reviewing.

Doing that final review within a day is because we want to make sure that we can reach or we can achieve that 14 days.

It doesn't always happen because, you know, applicants may not be available for an interview right away, but it at least allows the Department, if they're motivated and organized enough, they have their interview questions ready, they have their interview panel, and they can do it quickly. It gives them the opportunity to make a hire quickly.

So, you know, we've been looking on onboarding, like the high school kids and the internship programs. How does that work in terms of your programming of getting interns into state jobs?

You know, I know we've talked about this before, how they meet the MQs, whether it's office assistant or some channel where they can lead to actual entry level jobs and then careers in various departments.

But how does that work in terms of how you folks onboard interns to get into jobs because there are people who want to get into jobs, but there's a lot like they have to go through the recruitment process. Is there a faster track for interns to get into state jobs?

We do have several different intern programs, and I've been working with our team to get out sort of a snapshot for departments, and we'll probably send that out very soon, within the next week or so.

There's actually five different intern programs with all different sort of parameters and requirements and target audiences. So I hope in the next week or so we can get that document out to at least give departments some information about the different avenues. Typically, DHRD doesn't hire interns.

We either work closely with Hele Imua, which you'll hear from next, to fill vacancies with interns. But we also have a position that we just filled as of last month, which we're calling our pathways position.

And it's a position to work with either the community colleges or Department of Education to try to flesh out those different pathways into state jobs. Right. And to work with them. If it requires, say, six months of experience. Can we work with the community colleges to develop career curriculum that high school students can take. Right.

Maybe a semester their senior year so that in lieu of the six months of experience, they complete this course through one of the community colleges, and then we, we would count that as a substitution for the six months of experience.

So they can get right into a job?

Yes. Well, and ideally they would do Hele Imua for, you know, a total 12 week period or and maybe a second 12 week period, and then they would have the one year of experience required for Office Assistant 3.

That's next. Okay. Yeah. Anything else?

Thank you. I think that's it. Thank you so much. We look forward to working with you this session. Thank you.

Okay, up next is a presentation by the Department of Labor Industrial Relations on two topics, Hele Mua program, Summer youth programs.

Good afternoon, Director

Aloha. Good afternoon, Chair Elefante. Senator Moriwaki, thank you for having us today and for your continued support for workforce development at the Department of Labor and industrial relations. I'm Jade Butai, DLIR Director.

With me are Bill Kunstman, my Deputy Director, Maricar Pilotin-Freitas, administrator of our workforce development division, Jerry Ishibashi, our program specialist, and David Rodrigues, our legislative coordinator. We're excited to talk to you about a program that proves that workforce development starts early and pays off later.

With your permission, chair, we would like to switch the batting order to allow for A smoother transition as we want to show a short video at the end. You know, the summer youth employment program focuses on younger participants and often provides their first job. Along the way they learn the essentials.

Showing up on time, working as part of a team and figuring out that a paycheck feels pretty good when you earn it. At the same time, the program supports local employers and strengthens our communities.

While the target population of the summer youth are high school students, Hele Imua gives college students and recent graduates paid hands on experience in public service. So they don't learn, just learn about government. In theory, they see how it actually works. And we recently expanded to the private sector with the DAGS industry.

True placements across state departments interns build real world skills, explore career paths and in many cases discover that state service is more exciting than they expected. Many of them stick around helping us grow our own talent and reduce the brain drain.

Together these programs are practical, forward looking investments in Hawaii's workforce and in the next generation of workers and leaders.

On that Director, do you have a budget every year for Hele Imua?

Yeah, we do.

You do. And do you know offhand what that budget is?

It's 5 million? Yeah, 5 million. But the summer youth is, that's federally funded.

That's federally funded.

How much is that?

We usually depending on what, you know, as funds become available, whatever on the WIOA.

Can you, could you also do appropriate- could the state do appropriations to expand summer youth? Other than federal funds? If the Legislature were to say we're going to give you X amount of dollars?

Yeah, we could do that because so it's not always certain that we get, you know, the, you know, we get federal funds on the summary.

Okay, so for the 182 for last summer, how much, how much did that cost? I mean if we're looking at.

Let me. Why don't we. We're gonna do the whole presentation. So you know, we truly appreciate the legislature's continued partnership and support. And with that, let me turn over to Maricar and you know, with apologies to James Brown, I think she's the hardest working person in workforce development, so let me.

Yes.

Aloha and welcome.

Happy New year. Chair Elephante, Senator Moriwaki, we do have a presentation that we'd like to share with you. This is regarding the summer youth program.

Next slide.

So the summer youth employment program. As Director Butay said we as funds are available, we do operate the summer youth program. The pilot began in 2022. So we started with a small group of high school students about 50 were placed.

We try to place the youth because this is their first job so that we place them close to the schools or they work in the school so that way they don't need to worry about transportation, getting to from home and back to work. So as the years progress, we've increased those numbers. 282 for the last summer.

So we do pay them higher than the minimum wage. And so the kids, we focus on providing them with financial literacy. So it's six to eight weeks. We understand that some of the kids, many of them really begin school in early August. So we try to give them that full six to eight weeks of experience.

We partner with the federal credit union, the state federal credit union, and they're nice enough to provide the kids weekly workshops to tell them that the cell phones that they own is not free and the wages that they earn, Uncle Sam, and the state takes out their share.

So it's not that total wages are going to them so that they're not shocked when they get their first paycheck.

Next slide please.

Okay, so we focus on Title 1 schools. That's the free lunch schools. It's through the Department of Education. So those are our target students and those were the participating schools that we've had recently.

So like I've indicated, the focus really is teaching the kids financial literacy because we want to prepare them to, to save early on and to budget for their future as well as to buy food because eventually they will become part of the workforce and we need to prepare them for that.

And those are some of the testimonies that we've had from youth. And this is their first job and their learning. We pay them while they're attending these workshops once a week.

So this summer youth program is just the Federal State Credit Union and that's it?

That's depends on which island some financial institution may be available to offer. But for Oahu is the Hawaii Federal Credit Union.

So the kinds of internships that they have, what are they doing?

Okay, so it depends. They can have the outdoor types, groundskeeper, painting the schools or maintaining the schools, as well as office work. So we provide the youth. And some of the youth were able to learn entrepreneurial skills on printing, publishing or advertising their products. So they're learning from A to Z. They do websites.

So it's not just limited to just a certain type of occupation. But we really, really depend on the host agencies because they're the ones that mentoring or coaching these, these kids to succeed and provide them the work skills that's needed reporting on time calling in, you know, when they're not able to report to work. So those are the skills that we try to teach the youth early on.

But has the Department looked at expanding it so it's just not, you know, one institution or two institutions because not all youth want to go and work, you know, at a financial institution. Right. There might be others. So has. Has there been thoughts of that? Because it's been a couple years now.

Right. Since the pilot. Okay. So chair though the, the institution, the financial institution just comes in to do a workshop. Yeah. Like how to budget the placements are. It has to be in the public.

We try to limit it in the schools or close to state agencies or public system sector that's located close to where the students live or reside. Sorry. So that way it facilitates, you know, it's easier for them to report with transportation being limited.

So that's what workforce development division try to focus on placing the youth in those geographical areas that they reside.

And these are just high school students?

Correct, in Title 1 schools.

But are you, is the Department looking to expand, you know, that program? So it's just not limited to Title 1, but others.

Because it's, it's federal funds, we have to focus on the vulnerable or low income youth.

So from the WIOA funds.

Okay. So how much I asked the Director, how much is this program if we were to expand the program to beyond Title 1, because then the state would pay. What is the cost for you in terms of per student or how your budget is from the federal funds? Let's just say 2025.

Okay. I guess that question is dependent on how. How many youth were expected to serve, what islands, the pay. We'd like to honor the same pay as the Hele Imua so it's less confusing for the public when we're promoting summer youth.

Yes.

Okay, so. So each student for six to eight weeks. How much would that cost? Just like $20 an hour, for how many hours?

$20 an hour for 40. 40 hours a week. Time is six to eight weeks. So I don't have the numbers with me. We can provide that to you Senator.

Please proceed.

Okay. So those are the outreach and recruitment. So if we are looking into expanding it to state funded we- The next slide, Taylor, thank you.

These are normally the timelines that we follow statewide in January we do the outreach and recruitment and we inform the youth as well as the work sites if they're interested in taking on a youth.

And then we collect the applications during spring break so that the parents are available to take to bring the kids in with their documents. Sometimes those documents are not readily available because they are the Department. It's one of those positions Director Hashimoto talked about. So we place them in those positions.

They are DLIR employees and they have to provide the same documents as a regular employee would provide, including the Social Security. And sometimes the youth have difficulty producing those documents. So we try to give them enough time to get those required documents before we collect them in March.

And are folks looking to track- I know it's in its infancy stages, but are you looking to track data like, and have that right, like, hey, come back and work for us. Right. In that sense, after they get their credentials or degrees or whatever that they need?

We are in the process chair of collecting those data. We do have a federal reporting system. So we're working with the vendor so that it does not impact our federal reporting and we're able to track a separate system for these youth.

So you had, I saw 30, 30 schools, but we've got like 200 schools. So what, what is preventing other schools for joining the program?

We, we provide an outreach to every school and we leave it up to, to the school to determine whether or not they have the capacity to accept the youth during the summer. As you know, summer, I think many of the teachers are not at the facility.

So it's just dependent on each school to determine whether or not they are willing to take a youth and they are able to mentor that youth during the six to eight weeks that summer is available to the youth to work.

The designation of the Title 1 schools is from, we just use the federal funds. They designate which ones are Title 1.

Got it.

Oh, okay. Sorry, Taylor. So at the end of the, at the end of the duration for the summer, we do invite the kids as well as the parents for a celebration. And they are able to share what they learn and the benefits to the program and how, how it impacted their, their lives.

So there's testimonials on the next slide that we can share with you. And so these are some of the youth that participated statewide. We have in Hilo, Kauai, as well as in Molokai. And so this, this really provides them supplemental income too, to purchase what they need.

And that's why it's important to teach them that financial literacy, because this is the first job many of them have. This may be the first paycheck they're having. So at least they know that this is your budget and that your parents sacrifice for, for these Phones, it doesn't come free. So and then the next slide.

So that Department of Accounting and General Services. Okay, how do we get DAGS involved?

It's in Molokai. So they, they, they're able to paint or clean the school facility. And Kauai, that's the entrepreneur program that I talked about. Talked about. They, so they taught the kids from A to Z how to print the T shirts, how to market, market their merchandise, create websites for it.

And so the kids really learn a lot during the short term. And we applaud the host or the schools for taking this these youth and teaching them during the six to eight week period. So Baldwin High School, I know it was asked why Maui. So like Director said these are federal designation.

We don't create the Title 1 designation. So we reach out to all those schools whether or not they want to participate in a summer youth employment program. Okay. And these are just the testimonials. And Jaiya after her, her summer youth she was able to get hired by the Department of Education as well as the public library.

So there's success to the program. And not every youth is interested in going to a four year college education. And the summer youth employment expose them before they're able to enter the workforce and teach them the necessary skills to become contributing adults to the workforce.

And so they even was able to learn how to run a restaurant by teaching them how to cook, how to package the merchandise. So they're learning skills that they can transition to any job once they graduate. And so that's from the summer youth.

We also have the Hele Imua thank you to the Legislature for having confidence in us to operate the summer youth the Hele Imua program. So that was a pilot and now we are at almost 1200 interns that the Department have placed to various.

But we would not be successful in meeting these numbers if the public sector are not interested in taking the interns because it does allow an investment in them in their agencies to take time out to train the Hele Imua intern and hopefully they're able to transition to regular jobs. So right now, now 130 have transitioned to state jobs.

And this is just testimony that you can read later. The intern was hired into a regular job and so we wanted to share with you. I guess me talking is not as impactful and I'll hand it off to Director.

We want to leave you with a powerful visual I think that captures everything about the Hele Imua. The vision, the voices of the people we serve and the impact we're making together. This short video brings it all to life. As you watch, I invite you to reflect on what role we can play to move the vision forward.

Thank you. Because your job is thankless.

I think I've always been really interested in state government and politics, and I think having the opportunity to really, you know, see firsthand how our government works and to have the opportunity to, you know, get paid to learn about these sorts of things seemed really interesting to me.

What basically inspired me to apply for this internship was just getting like workhorse experience in Hawaii, because my main goal is to stay in Hawaii and find potentially a good working job.

I worked in a company for just shy of 25 years, and so you tend to get very complacent, very comfortable where you're at. But this made me have to do more.

So I would say most of what I do is desk work. You know, looking through documents, uploading and processing tax applications from employers who want tax breaks for employing people from certain underrepresented groups, and then also just helping out around the office.

First, check my emails, check the file reports, do any data entry, and check in with my supervisor. They need me to do anything else.

So I learned how to fill out the GE forms, cancellation forms, post, scan, process documents. It's worth getting here because I've been. Wanting to work with the Tax Department since I was high school Hele Imua

It's a pathway to individuals who wanted a better job or explore or experience the field that they wanted.

So my dream is to be a sports broadcaster, hopefully getting up to a high level. The ambitious dream is to one day commentate the Super Bowl. I think that this internship has really, really helped me.

I've never really taken the time to really think about what makes a quality commentator until I had to really map it all out.

And of course, the opportunity to get additional reps in by commentating the Kings of Hawaii tournament, and I may commentate a couple of high school events before I go back to college as part of the internship as well. And so just any opportunity to get better is what this internship has provided me with and I'm very grateful for that.

I would say new skills and knowledge I gained from this internship would have to be my communication skills. I would say, grown a lot, especially taking and receiving calls. It's a lot different than day to day conversation.

And being able to communicate effectively to employers in a respectful way and also handling different types of situations was very cool to experience.

I mean, this was the first, you know, nine to five job that I've worked and having the, you know, responsibility of really organizing my own schedule and being responsible for the work that I was taking care of and not having somebody, you know, checking in on me that often, I think that was something that really taught me a lot of responsibility and maturity and trying to, you know, be as disciplined as possible.

It helped me a lot. It helped me learn to talk to people. It helped me learn to it's okay to make mistakes. It helped me to get a feel of what I'm planning to do after done with school.

I think it's really nice that they have this opportunity for students just leaving high school and needing to know, how does the job field work and how does. How does any of this work? It's a nice little stepping stool into the actual pool.

Every moment here serves a purpose in some shape, way or form. Whether it's like, personal experience, refining skills. Gaining exposure, or just having those moments and interactions with everyone around here.

At the end of the day, it feels really meaningful to be able to come home and be like, I actually did something today. I actually made a difference in somebody's life. And those sorts of jobs are ones that I want to have in my future.

So I think it helped me, you know, learn a lot about myself. Also learning a lot of, like, personal skills that will help me in the future.

Yeah. Sometimes I kind of have to say to myself, am I really here? Am I really doing all of this? Like, I kind of amazed myself too.

You know, there was times when I was like, oh, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do this. But they're like, let's try. And lo and behold, I'm in a permanent position. I just know that without their help and without their encouragement, it wouldn't have happened. I may have lost the opportunity that was right in front of me.

I think if you're thinking about doing Hele Imua, it's incredibly beneficial. It really gives you the opportunity to, you know, learn a lot about a field you might be interested in.

And even if you don't think you'd want to work in state government one day, I think it's incredibly beneficial in terms of building personal skills and building you up as a person.

If I had to describe Hele Imua in a phrase, it would be thank you to all the people who work behind the scenes and do the paperwork, the people who offer the jobs and the job sites, along with the people who provide the funding for all of us interns.

This program. That's basically what it is. It's a drive to move you forward. Yeah. And there we go. That's Hele Imua. That's what that means is to move forward.

Okay, thank you. Yes, thank you for sharing that.

Just one segue. Yeah, just one segue. You're going to be doing this in the private sector, and how will it differ from what you're doing here? And what would be the pathways in the private sector? Maybe you can give us some information later.

It doesn't have to be now because we have a time frame, but I want to know how you're going to segue into the private sector.

Okay. Like Director said, we do have a pilot right now, Senator. It's with the DAGS industry. We have three interns. So as we learn from that process, we can tweak it before fully expanding it to, to all, all employers. Because we still want to focus on the demand industries to help with the brain drain.

Yeah, because I, I. We just had a forecast from the Department of Economic Development and they're saying that one of the big areas would be AI and technology. And I'm just wondering, in the public sector you showed having interns in a telecommunication area.

I'm just wondering how you can segue because I know that we've got a lot of tech companies, but how you can start bringing interns into that, that arena as well and hopefully also have them come to state government.

Yeah, I think I share the same thoughts as Senator Moriwaki is, you know, what ways that we can expand that, because I think there's a big opportunity here to create a pipeline for, you know, summer youth, Hele Imua, into our local labor workforce.

Whether it's you need more funding or less restrictions, you know, just please, please work with us on that because we're happy to see what we can do. Yeah.

And we appreciate all your support because really your support in expanding it helps with private sectors willing to take the interns because we can have all the applicants and no placements. So vice versa. So we need that partnership.

Okay, if no further questions, thank you so much for your time today and we look forward to working with you this session and this year.

There being no further business, we are adjourned. Thank you.