GovCentral

WASHINGTON — With the sputtering job market flashing an encouraging sign — unemployment claims at their lowest point since January — the White House announced a summit Thursday to try to speed the day when hiring finally starts again. While President Barack Obama called the new jobless figures hopeful, economists think claims will probably stay too high to indicate even a ...

BOSTON — Gov. Deval Patrick said Wednesday that the federal stimulus program has created or saved more than 23,000 jobs in Massachusetts since February. State agencies have received $4 billion from the national $787 billion package, and have spent $1.9 billion. The expenses include $1.3 billion for such benefits as unemployment insurance and $500 million on programs and infrastructure. The 23,533 ...

The stimulus money flowing through state agencies has saved or created almost 4,500 jobs in Colorado so far, most of them in colleges and prisons. An analysis released Tuesday by Gov. Bill Ritter's economic recovery team also found that about 6,200 homebuyers have taken advantage of the one-time $8,000 federal tax credit for buying their first home. It also found that ...

WASHINGTON - Businesses receiving federal contracts under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus program reported creating or saving more than 30,000 jobs in the first months of the program, according to data released Thursday by a government oversight board. The numbers, based on jobs linked to less than $16 billion in federal contracts, represent just a sliver of the $787 billion stimulus ...

Madison — The first solid - if still incomplete - employment numbers for federal stimulus spending by Wisconsin state government show that retaining government positions was job one. Three-fourths of 8,284 stimulus-related jobs accounted for so far were public-sector posts protected by the federal infusion into state and local government coffers, Gov. Jim Doyle's office reported. That included teachers, police officers ...

Federal stimulus spending has created or saved thousands of Oregon jobs, state officials boasted Monday, but at least three out of every four positions were in government work, according to the state's own figuring. The lion's share of the money -- about $750 million, went to beefing up entitlement programs, such as Medicaid, unemployment benefits and food stamps. But the remaining ...

Delivering on President Obama's promise to boost the labor movement, the administration has announced a $35 million federal construction project in New Hampshire that requires union representation for the workers and forces nonunion employees to pay dues and contribute to a union pension fund. Mr. Obama issued an executive order in the first weeks of his presidency that would make the ...

Never let it be said that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano doesn't know how to kick off National CyberSecurity Awareness Month. "I'm pleased to announce today that we've been given direct authority to hire up to 1,000 additional cyberspecialists within the Department of Homeland Security, to assist, and make our efforts more robust and vibrant than they are right now." The ...

When Arizona economic development officials look across their state, they envision the Saudi Arabia of solar. The state has sun, land, workers and proximity to California, the biggest solar market in the U.S. Yet for years, Arizona has failed to attract the big solar manufacturers that build the mirrors, panels and other components for solar equipment. In the past three years, ...

Happy Friday! The Commerce Department will establish a new Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship to help small businesses grow faster, part of the Obama administration's new $100 billion innovation agenda announced earlier this week. The administration is especially interested in helping small businesses and entrepreneurs as statistics suggest businesses less than five years old accounted for nearly all private sector employment ...

WASHINGTON — The $787 billion economic recovery package also is stimulating growth in the federal government as agencies hire thousands of workers and spend millions of dollars to oversee and implement the package, according to government records and spokesmen. Fourteen of the top federal agencies responsible for spending under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act say they've hired about 3,000 workers ...

A group of manufacturing industry representatives--including the National Association of Manufacturers, American National Electrical Manufacturers Association, the Manufacturers Alliance, and Rockwell Automation--has gone on record noting that a federal strategy and support is critical if American manufacturers are to thrive in the post-recession global economy. This transformation to smarter, safer, and more sustainable manufacturing provides an opportunity for the federal government ...

Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday encouraged federal agencies to incorporate into their daily operations the business practices they have instituted to meet the Recovery Act's transparency, efficiency and accountability requirements. "Running the risk of setting myself up for a test I may not be able to pass 18 months from now... I've asked, at the end of the day, ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The unemployment rate jumped to 9.7 percent in August, the highest since June 1983, as employers eliminated a net total of 216,000 jobs. The level of job cuts is less than July's upwardly revised total of 276,000 and is the lowest in a year. Analysts expected the unemployment rate to rise to 9.5 percent from July's 9.4 ...

JACKSONVILLE, FLA. — Jobless since January, Donald Money has already moved in with his elderly parents, stopped going to the movies and started using less of his prescription medication so it will last longer. This month, something else will fall by the wayside: Money's unemployment check. The 43-year-old former printing press operator is among the more than 1.3 million Americans whose ...

The federal government needs to hire more than 270,000 workers for "mission-critical" jobs over the next three years, a surge prompted in part by the large number of baby-boomer federal workers reaching retirement age, according to the results of a government-wide survey being released Thursday. The numbers also reflect the Obama administration's intent to take on several enormous challenges, including the ...