New Orleans
We have among the highest need for construction workers, bartenders, hotel clerks, etc. of any city in the country. We also have one of the highest percentages of young professionals (college grads) in any city. 40% of the white, adult population in the city is under 35 and single.
We're coming back in a big way. And we need smart people. The suburbs of the city were mostly unaffected by the storm, as those levees held. Most neighborhoods that flooded were those you would never go to anyway.
New Orleans just made, as a city, $200 million dollars from visitors coming to the city to WATCH the Super Bowl. Mardi Gras was the highest attended in 25 years.
I guarantee you that you could find a job here and no where else will you have as good of a time. It isn't just Bourbon St., there are fun places to go all over town.
My 2 cents.
My younger brother moved to N.O. at the beginning of 2005 and after Katrina, left for a few months while things were shut down. He found a job working at a restaurant he had worked at in college back in Indiana until his manager back in New Orleans called him back at the end of December BEGGING him to come back. He was working at the House of Blues as a bartender and they needed people to come back and provide service for all the construction and other guys rebuilding things down there. As soon as he could, he went back and started making BIG money.
Just this last year, he started a bakery and is doing fairly well, even though he is still working at the House of Blues while the business grows. He works pretty much 7 days a week but you can’t accuse him of being a slacker, LOL.
BTW, it’s my fault he moved there. We lived in Slidell when my husband was stationed over at Stennis. He came to visit us and fell in love with New Orleans and the whole gulf region. As my friend Donna (who lives in Pass Christian) puts it, anyone who is from north of I-10 is a Yankee, LOL.