State HR office reports surge in applicants but 24% vacancy rate; pilots fast-track hiring under ‘Operation Hire Hawaii’

Bridal Hashimoto, director of the Department of Human Resources Development, told the Senate Committee on Labor and Technology on Jan. 12 that the state received more than 41,000 applications for civil-service jobs in fiscal year 2025 — a roughly 27% increase from the prior year — even as the overall civil-service vacancy rate remained at about 24%.

Hashimoto said the state’s hiring process starts in individual departments, which typically recruit internally first. When departments cannot fill a position internally they submit a requisition through the department’s electronic recruitment platform (NeoGov), where DHIRD screens applications and certifies lists of qualified applicants for hiring managers.

Why it matters: the twin facts of a larger applicant pool and a steady vacancy percentage point to bottlenecks in screening, classification and department-level hiring practices. The committee heard that DHIRD is pursuing both process and staffing changes to reduce time to hire and to convert applicants to hires.

Hashimoto described several near-term and pilot strategies. DHIRD has a continuous-screening model called “WikiWiki” for frequently open entry-level classes (which tells qualified applicants directly which hiring managers have vacancies) and recently contracted for NeoGov’s attract/track features to reach candidates. DHIRD reported it currently has about 20 staff screening applications; when asked about resources she said DHIRD is seeking to make permanent a small ARPA-funded recruitment team that currently numbers five and to add a supervisor to manage screening capacity.

Hashimoto also reported operational outcomes from Operation Hire Hawaii, a fast-track recruitment approach that routes applications to hiring departments immediately rather than waiting for DHIRD screening. DHIRD said Operation Hire Hawaii had received over 8,000 applications, opened 177 recruitments, closed 127 and recorded 203 hires as of the last update. Hashimoto said the program’s goal is to be able to make a conditional offer within about 14 days when departments run the fast-track process.

The vacancy report and classification study: DHIRD walked the committee through an annual vacancy report (formerly referred to as the Act 57 report), showing that while the vacancy rate stayed near 24% the state added roughly 300 filled positions year-over-year and replaced about 1,169 positions that became vacant. Hashimoto told the committee the department has budgeted $1,750,000 to hire a vendor to review classification, minimum qualification requirements and pay structures across the civil-service system and that DHIRD expects an interim progress report next month and final recommendations in the following legislative session.

On retention and pay tools, DHIRD said the statewide retention/turnover number for the latest year was about 9.54%, which DHIRD contrasted with private-sector turnover benchmarks near 15%. Hashimoto described existing pay tools—delegated “flex hiring” steps for candidates who exceed minimum qualifications, shortage differentials for hard-to-fill classes, and separate salary schedules for occupations such as engineers—while noting that pay changes require department funding and coordination with bargaining units.

What the committee asked and what remains unresolved: senators pressed DHIRD on how departments use referral lists, how many screened applicants are ultimately deemed qualified, and department responsiveness to referrals. Senators also asked for more granular data on which vacancies are funded and which are not; Hashimoto noted that the vacancy report includes a drill-down of older vacancies (e.g., the roughly 485 vacancies more than four years old) but that not all funding-status details for the full vacancy pool were included in the handout.

Next steps: DHIRD said it will provide an interim progress report on the classification/compensation study next month if the vendor contract is executed, will continue Operation Hire Hawaii recruitments and will follow up with the committee on staffing and the ARPA-to-permanent request.