Thirty-four unionized restaurant workers at the Ka'anapali Beach Club hotel time share on Maui have been laid off in another dose of bad news for the island's ailing economy.

The workers are members of UNITE HERE Local 5 and had worked at the hotel's North Beach Grill. They were notified they would be losing their jobs on July 23 and were told by management that the layoffs were needed for "financial reasons," Cade Watanabe, Local 5 spokesman, said yesterday.

Ka'anapali Beach Club officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Watanabe said the layoffs came as a surprise because the union and management had been in contract talks and there was no indication that any layoffs were in the works. He said union officials have been unable to meet with hotel management since Wednesday.

The contract that covered the 240 union employees expired Jan. 1, but they have been working on a contract extension.

The layoffs came two days before Maui Land & Pineapple announced that it was laying off 274 workers because of the weak economy and rising fuel costs.

Maui Pineapple Co. took the brunt of the layoffs with the elimination of 204 employees, while the balance of the reductions would be made at ML&P's corporate and community development units, as well as at the Kapalua Resort.

The layoffs are further signs of a slumping tourism industry on Maui. The island has been experiencing declines in both visitor arrivals and hotel occupancy in recent months.

Arrivals fell to 169,404 in May, a 9.2 percent decline from a year earlier, according to statistics compiled by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. Through the first five months of the year Maui visitor arrivals were down 3 percent to 939,884.

Maui hotel occupancy fell by 4.1 percentage points in May to 65.5 percent from the same month a year earlier. In April, occupancy at Maui hotels dropped to 70.7 percent from 71.7 percent a year earlier.