SACRAMENTO, Calif. There really are jobs out there - just not enough of them.

It's true: America's bleak economic landscape includes pockets of prosperity. Factories are expanding in the Sacramento area, the Rust Belt and elsewhere. The tech sector is humming, from Silicon Valley to North Carolina.

Las Vegas casinos are hiring again. High energy prices are creating work in obvious places such as Oklahoma and Texas, as well as the hinterlands of North Dakota, an oil-rich state that boasts the nation's lowest unemployment rate. Health care remains fairly strong just about everywhere.

Even if the U.S. economy is sputtering, companies are benefiting from a growing worldwide demand for their products and services.

That explains why Mori Seiki Co., a Japanese machine-tools manufacturer, will soon pour the foundation for a 150-employee factory in Davis, west of Sacramento.

"People have to have automobiles and planes and medical equipment," said Adam Hansel, a Mori Seiki executive in Davis.

Make no mistake, though: In many places, even the birth of a factory can get lost in waves of news about a faltering recovery and a 9.1 percent national unemployment rate. The Mori Seiki factory, for instance, will make barely a dent in the 12.5 percent unemployment gripping the Sacramento metro area, which includes Davis.

Generally, the job market is brighter in communities that avoided the excesses of the housing bubble. The unemployment rate in Oklahoma City, where there wasn't much of a housing boom, is 5.7 percent - the lowest among large U.S. metro areas.

Oklahoma City, which has a working oil well on the grounds of the state Capitol, is reaping the benefits of the run-up in energy prices. In the last year, 1,300 energy jobs have been created in the city.

A boom in shale oil, plus strong crop prices, have driven unemployment in North Dakota to 3.3 percent, the lowest in the country.

"Oil and gas are obviously carrying us, but the agricultural economy is doing pretty good, too," said Steve Pine of Great Northern Energy, an oil-services firm in Bismarck.