“We’ve seen an extreme escalation in the past 12 months,” Ms. Glaser said. “If someone applies for a job and you don’t get to them within 24 hours, that person will already have taken another job.”

Even during the strong economy that accompanied the housing boom of the mid-2000s, the unemployment rate never dropped below 4.4 percent, and the United States has never reached the point at which everyone who wanted a job could get one. Perhaps as a result, incomes were stagnant for many middle-class families, and many groups that have historically faced discrimination or other disadvantages in the labor market never experienced the full benefits of the strong economy.

Many economists say the recovery still has a ways to go before rivaling that of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The unemployment rate has fallen nearly as far as it did in 2000, when it hit 3.8 percent. But millions of Americans still have part-time or temporary jobs, or are out of the labor force entirely. And parts of the country still bear the scars of the recession that officially ended nearly a decade ago.

“I think of the late ’90s as having been a very healthy labor market,” said Narayana Kocherlakota, the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. “When I look at the United States today, I think it has some room to grow in terms of achieving that kind of health.”

Still, household incomes have risen rapidly in the past two years, with the strongest gains coming for those in the poorest families. And there are signs that the tightening labor market is at last beginning to shift bargaining power from companies to workers. Ahu Yildirmaz, an economist who helps lead the research arm of the payroll-processing company ADP, said her firm’s data showed more people switching jobs, and getting bigger bumps in pay for doing so.

For Mr. Forseth, the job at Stoughton Trailers was an opportunity to save money and prove his value. He even earned the Employee of the Month award — although, because he was still incarcerated, he couldn’t take advantage of the parking spot that came with it.

Now, however, he is thinking bigger. Other jobs in the area pay higher wages, and his freedom has opened up more options. He has been talking to another local company, which is interested in training him to become an estimator — a salaried job that would pay more and offer room for advancement.