DETROIT (AP) After a year of watching auto sales slowly increase month by month, industry executives are finally willing to firmly declare that the US market is in recovery.

People who had been too afraid to make a big car purchase are finally coming back to dealerships, a little more confident that they won’t lose their jobs. And that’s reflected in November’s auto sales figures: Industry sales were up 16.9 percent for the month compared with a year ago. Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Honda, Nissan and Hyundai all posted double-digit gains.

“We’re starting to see people showing an inclination to go back into the dealerships, to go back into the malls,” said Jim Bunnell, general manager of General Motors Co.’s US sales operations. “It’s not going to happen overnight, but we think as we roll through 2011, we’re going to see a nice, gradual improvement and recovering in the automotivesector.”

For most of 2010, car sales were driven by people who needed a car rather than wanted a car. Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of consumer website Edmunds.com, says that still holds true at the end of the year: “They’ve been putting it off and they can’t put it off any longer. Some people waited to catch the close-out deals.”

Bob Carter, Toyota’s top US sales executive, is seeing customers going even further. As the economic landscape improves, the company is starting to see buyers opting for more highly equipped SUVs. Still, Toyota was the only automaker to post a decline, with sales down 3.3 percent. It blamed the drop on a cut in sales to fleet buyers such as rental car companies.