State of Hawaii sees brighter economy ahead

With the outlook of improving data points, the Hawaii State Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism reports that our economy is getting brighter.  Improving visitor arrivals, visitor spending, better personal income and job growth all has greatly improved in the past three months.  The Departments improve numbers combined with many businesses including auto dealers, retailers and airlines have all begun expanding in anticipation of stronger growth in Hawaii.

Safeway, Target, Longs, and Down to Earth have all said that they are adding stores in Hawaii and TJ Max and PETCo are entering the Hawaii market with new retail stores.  Bed, Bath and Beyond has already opened its first Hawaii store earlier this month.

The department is still expecting to see contraction in the employment this year, but see it being less than what was already anticipated and Oahu is faring much better than neighbor islands, but they anticipate that the job recovery will come sooner than anticipated/