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NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - If you were seeking work in New Orleans in the months before Hurricane Katrina hit, chances are you had to fight to get an employer's attention. Now all you need to do is show up and perhaps pass a drug test.
Workers have become a precious commodity in the Mardi Gras capital as it flickers back to life seven weeks after Katrina came ashore, submerging entire neighborhoods in a ferocious tidal surge.
Signs advertising jobs dot the landscape of this devastated city, even in areas that bore the brunt of Katrina's fury. In St. Bernard Parish, a working-class district that suffered extensive flooding, companies search high and low for help.
At a job fair on Sunday, one of many held in the city in recent weeks, Paul Day was among those in the hunt for workers.
"We've got jobs for people," said Day, a trainer with Fluor Corp., a California-based engineering firm that has been contracted by the federal government to help rebuild New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast.
"If they can pass the drug screen, they'll get work," said Day, as he manned a booth at the fair. He said a few dozen people had come by in the past two days to inquire about working for the company.
He and other prospective employers said the lack of available housing in the city was a major obstacle for those looking for jobs. The hurricane damaged thousands of homes and many remain uninhabitable.
The city is working on a plan to house people in makeshift trailer parks, hotels and even on unused military bases, but it concedes it is counting on the private sector to ease the crunch by offering workers temporary accommodation.
Although Katrina destroyed hundreds of businesses in New Orleans, prompting tens of thousands to file for unemployment benefits, it opened up opportunities for others.
Construction firms, many of them with contracts provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, are among those attempting to fill what officials concede is a gaping hole in the local economy.
Hotels, restaurants and bars, in turn, are scrambling to serve the newcomers and going to great lengths to find workers. Some are offering bonuses of $1,000 or more to job applicants who agree to stay for a year.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who ordered the city's 450,000 residents to evacuate last month, has been encouraging people to return to the city. At a rally last week in Metairie, a New Orleans suburb, he told job seekers they could expect to make "serious money" if they came home.
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