Across Hawaii yesterday, business productivity may have dipped a bit as some working parents stayed home or put in fewer hours on the job because they had to care for their children on the first day of public school teacher furloughs.

The productivity loss, even if stretched over all the state's 17 planned teacher furlough days through May, probably won't amount to any discernable drop in the state's gross domestic product, because parents will mostly be using time off work they otherwise would have taken at another time.

Still, the relatively short notice of the first "furlough Friday" challenged numerous companies to maintain services and production.

Joe Miller, the owner of Seal Masters of Hawaii, a company that restores the exterior of commercial and residential buildings, feared not having enough workers to perform scheduled jobs yesterday.

As it turned out, the only effect was a couple of Seal Masters' roughly 90 employees who had to arrive late or go home early yesterday, and the adjustments didn't disrupt any work.

"We were fortunate,"Miller said, adding that his bigger concern is about Hawaii's kids being disadvantaged by less education than kids elsewhere.

Some companies took steps to help arrange or provide care for school-age children of employees in family-friendly efforts that also helped maintain the workforce at normal levels.

First Hawaiian Bank offered to pay half the cost of certain day care programs on furlough Fridays for employees. Iris Matsumoto, the bank's executive vice president of human resources, said most employees with child care needs yesterday either relied on family or private care. Virtually none brought kids to work or took time off. "We haven't seen that at all,"she said.

For future furlough Fridays, First Hawaiian plans to invite children of employees to come to work to learn about monetary issues from employees.

"It's a natural for us,"Matsumoto said.

The bank also is offering to pay for admission to the Hawaii Children's Discovery Center on furlough Fridays.

Other companies that made it more convenient for working parents to be at work yesterday included Title Guaranty of Hawaii, which offered to pay up to 75 percent of approved child care expenses for full-time employees.

Chevonne Larkin, a title representative for the company, enrolled both her children in a program.

"I can honestly say I was nervous about where my kids would spend those Fridays when school is not in session," she said. "My only option was to ask family to watch them, but because they already help out during intersession I was concerned to lean on them too much."

At Central Pacific Bank, a conference room at its Downtown headquarters was converted to a day care center operated by Kamaäina Kids, accommodating 45 children of employees at a cost of $15 for kids ages 5 to 13.

Many parents of the 170,000 Hawaii public school students with no classes yesterday didn't need time off work because they relied on relatives to be with their kids, arranged private child care or weren't scheduled to work.

Local economist Paul Brewbaker of TZ Economics said the loss in business output from teacher furloughs really isn't much, and pales in comparison with what will be lost if classroom instruction time isn't increased to make up for the days schools are closed by furloughs.

"You're investing in human capital in drips and drabs,"he said. "Every day counts."