Hawai'i in April experienced its first unemployment rate decline in 15 months, but officials said it doesn't signal an end to the state's economic travails.

The April rate was 6.9 percent, or down slightly from March's seasonally adjusted 7.1 percent, the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations reported yesterday. Hawai'i's unemployment rate continued to be lower than the national average, which was 8.9 percent last month.

State Labor Department director Darwin L.D. Ching noted people shouldn't assume that tough times are over.

Hawai'i's jobless rate has been more than 6.5 percent for three months, a level that's not been reached in more than three decades.

"While we are encouraged by the decrease in unemployment, the road to recovery is not one traveled easily or quickly," Ching said, noting Gov. Linda Lingle's administration is continuing to focus on creating more jobs and increasing economic activity.

His caution was echoed by Leroy Laney, professor of finance and economics at Hawai'i Pacific University, who said a 0.2 percentage point drop was probably within the margin of error for the unemployment rate, which is based on a telephone survey of households.

"You're essentially talking about 7 percent, period," said Laney, who also does an annual economic forecast for First Hawaiian Bank.

"It's far too early to say things are getting better."

He said two pillars of the local economy, construction and tourism, aren't showing signs of a resurgence and in fact the opposite may be true with anecdotal talk of construction projects being canceled.

"You've got swine flu and the Japanese are not traveling," Laney said. "Who knows what this summer is going to look like."

The high unemployment rate has boosted turnout at various job fairs held during the past year.

Job hunters turned out en masse Wednesday at the WorkForce 2009 job fair at the Neal Blaisdell Center. Organizer Beth Busch said the 6,500 attendees was the largest turnout of any regular job fair she's directed in the past 13 years.

The April unemployment rate was nonetheless a respite from the rate's uphill climb. The last time unemployment declined was the start of last year, when the January rate dipped to 3.0 percent from 3.1 percent the prior month.

Since that time, Hawai'i unemployment has more than doubled as the state suffered a series of economic setbacks primarily brought on by the national economic downturn, higher oil prices, the credit market crunch and Wall Street's turmoil.

During that time, Hawai'i has remained below the national joblessness average and in April had the 17th-lowest rate in the country.

It also was one of 21 states nationally where rates declined from March.

Hawai'i's decline came as the number of unemployed shrank from March's 45,500 to 44,400 last month.

The state also released non-seasonally adjusted unemployment showing the Neighbor Islands continue to experience more joblessness than O'ahu. Unemployment fell on all islands except for Moloka'i and Lana'i. By island: