“We can see how much money has gone out but only guess how many jobs that creates,” says Ethan Pollack, a policy analyst with the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). President Barack Obama has claimed that stimulus spending had created or saved about 150,000 jobs as of late spring 2009, a substantial number still dwarfed by monthly job losses -- 345,000 in May alone.
While the Obama administration has said that all recovery funding will not and should not be distributed at once, the president’s Cabinet is taking credit for distributing substantial money that has or will lead to job creation.
“When it comes to rolling out the money, we’re actually ahead of schedule,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told the National Press Club in May.
For example, more than $25 billion of $27.5 billion in ARRA money designated for highway projects had been allocated by mid-May, according to Recovery.org, a private venture that tracks recovery-project funding. (The government’s ARRA site is Recovery.gov, where you can learn about ARRA-funded projects as they are announced.)
So where are stimulus jobs being created today? Let’s look at a few examples across industries and around the country.
Healthcare: Clinics Hire in Indiana
Stimulus-funded hiring in community health has begun in Indiana.
Neighborhood Health Clinics, a nonprofit community health provider in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has been allocated $340,000 in ARRA money. “We’ve received stimulus funding to hire an additional physician, two nurses and a billing specialist,” says Mary Haupert, president. The physician begins work in June; the clinic is in the process of making the other three hires.
The process of transferring the clinic’s ARRA money to its payroll account is simple, Haupert says: “We have a grant amount and can access it online.”
What happens when the stimulus funding runs out in April 2011? “We feel the physician will have acquired enough patients to generate the revenue to pay for the salaries of the staff hired via ARRA,” Haupert says.
Meanwhile, the clinic is applying for a second round of ARRA funding -- $675,000 to help expand the physical plant, which will mean construction jobs and more healthcare employment opportunities.
Government Contracting: Putting Training Funds to Work
Recovery Act funding is already creating good jobs with government contractors nationwide.
With ARRA money, Department of Energy contractor Washington River Protection Solutions has hired dozens of health physics technicians who will protect the safety of workers cleaning up radioactive waste from nuclear weapons production at Washington state’s Hanford nuclear reservation.
“We’re getting $326 million of Recovery Act money over two-and-a-half years,” says John Britton, a Washington River spokesman. “We’ve hired 30 health physics technicians. They will get 20 weeks of classroom training and six weeks on the job. We hope they’ll stay for their entire career.” The project -- the largest environmental cleanup in history -- is expected to last until 2035.
The technician jobs are unusually well-paying considering they require only a high school diploma and some aptitude for math and science. Trainees begin at $20 per hour; senior technicians may earn $35 an hour.
ARRA money is also flowing through state and local governments to those entering the workforce for the first time, sometimes to fund temporary jobs. For example, Indiana is hiring 2,000 young adults from low-income households for the summer to improve the state’s parks and trails.
Construction: Shovels Dig into New England
Those thoroughly hyped “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects are finally putting construction boots on the ground.
Pike Industries has won contracts for 10 stimulus projects in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, says spokesman Erik Taylor. “As a result, Pike has gone from a position of considering significant layoffs to hiring feverishly,” he says. “Sixty-five people have been hired and 70 more hires are in process.”
Pike is hiring mostly equipment operators and laborers, but also knowledge workers such as construction project managers and administrative assistants.
“The economy has been basically garbage, so I’m excited about this job,” says Jason Fullerton, recently hired by Pike to operate an excavator on an Interstate 89 resurfacing project in New Hampshire. “I’m hoping that when the stimulus work is done, the economy will have come back a bit [creating further opportunities].”
What’s the future of stimulus spending under ARRA? “We’ll see a lot more money in the next six months -- much more than has already hit,” says the EPI’s Pollack.
source: Monster.com
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