rosie romero is a long-time contractor and hosts a radio show on home improvement that broadcasts throughout arizona. >> you know, what we're seeing right now is those folks that wanted to remodel in '06 or '07 or '08, and then the economy did what it did, and they caught their breath and then they held their breath for the last three or four or five years. well, now they're exhaling a little bit and saying, "you know what? i'm going to do that project that i've been waiting four years for, but i'm going to scale it back. i'm going to scale it down." >> reporter: aruna murthy is an economist with the state of arizona who tracks employment figures. she says arizona peaked in 2006 with more than 247,000 construction workers, a figure that has fallen steeply to over 113,000. but there has been improvement. >> since march of this year, i think for the past five months we have seen a month-after-month increase. we have seen a total increase of about 8,200 jobs. until and unless we find a long- term trend in gains, i wouldn't feel comfortable in saying we are out of the woods. murthy says among th