The Las Vegas building boom has stretched the work force paper-thin. Construction, which accounted for 113,500 jobs in July, now is Nevada’s fastest-growing and second-largest employer behind gaming. About $15 billion of resort work is slated through 2009, the city says.
The breakneck growth along the Strip is still a union stronghold. “Unions don’t come to jobsites to organize anymore, they come to get bodies because they can’t satisfy their own demand on the Strip,” says Robert Potter, chairman of Affordable Concepts, a local nonunion contractor.