Move over, Tulsa — Oahu is calling. The Oklahoma city’s Tulsa Remote program, which since November 2018 has paid $10,000 to remote workers and self-employed digital nomads willing to move to the city for year, now has some stiff competition from Hawaii.
The Aloha State has just announced the Movers and Shakas program, a private/public partnership whose playful name refers to the local three-fingered hand wave. It will initially involve only the island of Oahu, the most populous and home to the state capital of Honolulu. Under the pilot program, 50 people with existing jobs that allow for working remotely will be offered free round-trip airfare to Honolulu, “significantly discounted” stays at one of five Waikiki hotels, and discounts at co-working sites.
The program is accepting applications now through Dec. 15. In return, remote workers must live on Oahu for at least one month, donate several hours of their time to a community nonprofit that can benefit from their expertise, and sign a pledge to protect the unique culture and environment of the islands. The program may later expand to the outer islands.
The benefits to workers from the mainland is pretty obvious, as one of the leading organizers of Movers and Shakas summed it up Tuesday.
“Working from Hawaii can provide a much-needed respite from the isolation and burnout caused by remote work,” said Jason Higa, CEO of FCH Enterprises, parent company of the local restaurant chain Zippy's. “With the lowest rate per capita of COVID infections in the country, and an abundance of social-distancing activities and dining experiences, Hawaii is ideal for those seeking a safe place to work and play.”
But the designers of the program intend for the islands to benefit, too, in a variety of ways. Under “Selection Criteria” in the FAQ of the program website, they note, “Our hope is that the program will help to build a more resilient Hawaii economy.” Applicants need to have more than the right job — they also need the right attitude, defined as living the “Aloha Spirit” and “looking to invest themselves into the community they choose to call home,” according to the FAQ. The online application asks, “What are your prior experiences with Hawaii?” — with multiple-choice answers ranging from, “I just really love the place,” to “I have lived in Hawaii” — and asks about volunteer experience and interests and current membership in community groups.
Applicants must also pledge to “uphold utmost respect of the people and land of Hawaii.” The program’s expanded Pledge to Our Keiki (Children), originally created by students from Waimanalo on Oahu and Molokai, includes promises such as “for this birthplace of aloha that typically welcomes more visitors than has residents — I will live aloha, tread lightly amongst this beauty and make it cleaner than I found it” and “for the health of our residents, other visitors, and myself, we will demonstrate compassion for all by graciously abiding by local public health authority guidelines.”
“As part of a Hawaii-based non-profit that is focused on getting people working, I am very excited about this program. It encourages people to come back to Hawaii, not as spectators but actively supporting the growth of values rooted in the aloha spirit and making our state and communities stronger,” John Leong, chief executive officer of KUPU, said in a press statement Monday. “By engaging with local nonprofits, individuals gain a unique understanding of Hawaii's values, while also adding their skills to positively impact people. Hawaii is a place where those committed to sharing aloha and who have a vision for a better tomorrow can find fertile ground to plant seeds of hope that will make healthier communities and inspire our world in the process."
Hawaii's new program is looking for remote workers to relocate to Oahu.
Inti St. Clair/Getty ImagesAlthough there’s no explicit income requirement, the program’s application asks for the range of household income, in the expectation that participants need to be able to afford Hawaii’s high cost of living even with discounted lodging and other incentives. The favorable time difference between the Bay Area and Hawaii — two hours during standard time, three when the mainland observes daylight saving time — and Silicon Valley’s well-paying jobs would indicate more people are likely to follow in the footsteps of Richard Matsui, the CEO and founder of kWh Analytics and a proponent of Movers and Shakas.
Born and raised in Honolulu, Matsui left Hawaii to attend Georgetown University, then consulted in Asia for a few years before moving to San Francisco in 2012, where he created his company to provide data analytics and financial services to the solar energy industry. After the pandemic lockdown began in March, two months after the birth of his first child, Matsui said, his wife convinced him they should return to his hometown and live near his parents.
“We thought we would be here for one month and two months in, we thought, ‘Why would we go back to San Francisco?’” Matsui told SFGATE. During their initial two-week quarantine, they compiled a five-page Google doc of what they thought other mainlanders should know about working remotely in the islands — for instance, Oahu has Uber and food delivery services — and started sharing it through friends on Apple and Google message boards. That led to 15 more people making the transition, and put Matsui in touch with other people working on the idea of bringing in other remote workers.
“We thought, ‘Yes, this pandemic is a massive crisis, but yes, there is a massive opportunity, the first time in a long time to diversify the economy so that it is not just tourism, and to bring in some world-class talent. Let’s go get more people like this to move to Hawaii and diversify the economy,’” Matsui said. “Even if companies don’t follow employees out here, people start companies with the people they know and spend time with day in and day out — that’s the magic of Silicon Valley — so there are some amazing companies that can be founded in Hawaii.”
According to Matsui, there’s also a health benefit to exchanging short-term vacationers for long-term remote workers. “We found that one temporary resident has an economic impact of 50 short-term tourists. For the same dollar impact, we can have 50 times less virus exposure. It’s a really important dynamic.”
The fine print of the Movers and Shakers’ FAQ makes it clear organizers have anticipated some concerns about the effect on housing costs, but do not believe they are justified. “The initial cohort of fifty M&S program participants will not be big enough to cause any significant economic shifts, but will give locals an opportunity to secure data on the effects a larger movement might have. There is reason to believe that real estate price inflation won’t be very significant in the long term. Price inflation occurred in real estate markets that were previously cheap, and when tech entered expensive real estate markets (e.g. New York City) those markets did not see dramatic effects on housing prices,” the website states.
“Furthermore, 25 percent of homes in Hawaii were purchased by non-residents in the last decade, which shows Hawaii is already exposed to national and global competition,” it continues. “Our hope is that remote workers will compete for those properties and turn the lights on in places like Kakaako, contributing external money and knowledge to the local economy that the current non-resident home buyers do not. We believe that remote workers will ultimately be giving our kamaʻaina” — the Hawaiian term for locals – “more staying power by creating more opportunities for locals with remote-friendly companies.”
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