Skilled workers are also in demand in Florida, where the unemployment rate has declined from a year earlier.
"We're getting encouraging indicators that the job market is starting to open up," said Bennett Mazor, 47, a staffing consultant for TransHire, a Fort Lauderdale-based recruiter. The company finds engineers, web designers and other workers for a range of companies including banks, manufacturers and others in the travel industry.
Las Vegas Strip casino gambling revenue rose 3.6 percent in December, bringing the full-year gain to 5.1 percent for a second annual increase as a recovery in the biggest U.S. betting city strengthened.
"The bulk of the strength in Nevada has come from leisure and hospitality," said Daniel White, a Moody's economist. "As the national recovery improves, more vacationers are returning and spending money in Vegas."
That's helping Heather Parks, who said her information- technology consultancy, Healliam Inc., is having to turn away customers now after weathering a "huge dry spell" last summer. Most of her customers are casinos, and her business, which she founded in 2010, has benefited from the trend of outsourcing technology work, she said by telephone
Arizona started to outpace the U.S. economy in last year's second half, said Daniel Culbertson, a Moody's economist. "Healthcare, education, and professional services have been particularly strong," he said.
Isaiah Lopez, 28, says he lost his job in May at Wells Fargo & Co.'s unit that processed second mortgages. He said he sent out 500 resumes over six months and had about 50 interviews until he was picked up by a staffing company and placed at American Express Co. at the end of October on a one-year contract without any benefits.
As a single father of three with $100,000 in student loan debt for his undergraduate and MBA degrees, Lopez said he was willing to take any job that came his way. "I needed to get a job just to sustain myself and my kids," he said.
Larry Storjohann, 54, the corporate general manager at Earnhardt Auto Group in Chandler, Arizona, said his company didn't hire anyone at its dealerships for almost two years from November 2007 to November 2009. Automotive sales have started to improve, with the company's sales growing 10 percent from 2010 to 2011. The company has hired 30-40 new employees recently at its 16 stores.
"We've hired sales people," he said. "We've hired support staff. We've hired staff in the detail areas. We are hiring and it seems like, knock on wood, the economy is continuing to inch up."