Labor Costs Rising

Labor costs are exploding in New Orleans and the surrounding area. My city has the deserved reputation for being a poor one. We had so many poorly educated, unskilled workers here (the storm has chased many of them away) that we were considered a third world entity in the U.S. But with my city virtually destroyed and in need of rebuilding, there is a shortage of workers here now, and they are seeing the demand for their labor become increasingly more profitable. Just today I saw numerous signs and placards promising double or more the wage rate prior to the hurricane. In the fast food industry it's even more pronounced. A cutthroat, post-hurricane labor market, in which too many employers are seeking too few workers, has prompted some of the New Orleans regions biggest fast food chains to offer workers thousands of dollars in signing bonuses to sign up or switch to their fast food outlet.
For instance, Burger King recruiters have been visiting federal disaster recovery centers and newly reopened high schools offering a $6,000 bonus, paid in monthly installments, to anyone promising to work full-time at a New Orleans Burger King restaurant. New part time workers (mostly teenagers who work after school) are being offered $3000 for signing up.
Almost over-night, because there are to few people and too many jobs (there is now housing for anyone new, so the equation is unlikely to change), Hurricane Katrina has transformed my city from an employer' market of low wages caused by a surplus of under-educated workers, to one where too few workers hop from job to job as the pay scales they offer keep increasing.
To further exacerbate the labor shortage, there is a slew of new jobs involving hurricane clean-up and repair that are low skilled but pay at least $15 per hour (as opposed to the pre hurricane fast food wage of about $6 per hour). The higher wages should stick even after the initial post storm hiring frenzy stabilizes, because the local labor pool will likely remain too small for years to come. Without housing for workers they will not come to New Orleans to work.
Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of the city's housing. The good aspect is that we'll never again be a minimum wage concentrated area. But services will now be more expense and harder to obtain. Just ask me how hard it is to find a contractor to start work on repairs needed to my house after the storm.
I can tell you it will probably be months before one will begin the work, because there just isn't enough labor left in this market. So Hurricane Katrina has entirely changed the labor dynamics in this city, just one of many effects of the storm of the century.