Construction jobs top 34,000, industry scrambles for workers - Pacific Business News, HI
He said the Hawaii Carpenters Union had peaked around 1990 with about 10,000 members, dipping toward 4,000 at the economy's nadir, and now nearing 7,000.
"Most of those guys are living in Vegas or the Pacific Northwest now," he said.
And it's hard to lure them back, Chock said, for two reasons: They've been burned before by short-lived building spurts and they find the high cost of housing in Hawaii daunting.
To promote the building trades in the high schools, Chock and others battle a stigma against blue-collar jobs.