CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- All you have to do is walk through job fairs to find out how many people are searching hard for work.

Nikita Fairley has been trying to land something for seven months.

“I would think that it would be easy for me to get a job. It's not. I have customer service background. I'm in school pursuing my bachelor's degree,” she said.

With Charlotte's big banks hurting, the local economy is taking a hit too. And Mark Vitner, an economist with Wachovia, said there are more tough times ahead.

“Right now we have a little bit more than enough workers to fill the jobs, and folks are having a little more difficulty landing a job. But things are still better here than they are in most other places,” he said.

Because of that, there are niches in Charlotte's economy that are surviving, even thriving in the downturn.

Despite soaring gas prices, Ron Osborne said his truck driving training school, Charlotte Diesel Driving School, finds jobs for more than 90 percent of its students.

“Job placement has not been a problem. As long as your work history is good, driving record's good, crime history is decent, we can get you a job,” he said.

Heating and air conditioning technicians are also in demand. Some local companies offer on the job training and salaries beginning at more than $40,000 a year. And Jett Norris, a job fair organizer, said health care is also an industry still hiring for many kinds of jobs, even non-medical ones.

“Any history of business experience, finance, accounting, administration, clerical, those skills are transferable through different aspects of the health care field,” he said.

There are even higher-end skills in demand too.

Al Nedrich is a corporate head hunter specializing in helping companies hire people who manage telecommunications software. He can't find enough applicants.

“I would be a hero for my clients in a number of different markets if I had more people,” he said.

Sometimes in a tough market finding a new job is also about finding a new career, which is why assessment programs at Central Piedmont Community College are increasingly using personality and interest tests to match unemployed workers with careers in fields they didn’t know existed before.

“(Job seekers) need to have somebody else who's objective, can look at that, talk with them, then they have this 'ah-hah' moment that 'Yeah, I can do that,’” said Pat Nash of the CPCC Career Center.

So many job seekers just have to keep hitting the pavement, hoping to find the niche that's looking for them.