Jobs News

American Jobs Act Bus Tour: President Obama speaks at Asheville Regional Airport

The first stop on the American Jobs Act Bus Tour was Asheville, North Carolina, a city of 76,000 located in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Air Force One landed at Asheville Regional Airport, where President Obama was greeted by Senator Kay Hagan and Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy. He spoke just before 11:00.

The American Jobs Act includes a proposal to provide $2 billion to improve safety, add capacity and modernize infrastructure at airports across the country .

Asheville Regional Airport could be eligible for $60 million of those funds. And as the President said, there's plenty of work to go around:

In this airport right here in Asheville, you've got a runway that needs to be widened and repaired. You've got a taxiway that's in the wrong spot –- which means that planes sometimes get too close together. So we could be doing some work right here at the Asheville Airport that would help boost tourism, help to boost the economy here, put people to work right now.

But it's not just here in Asheville. All across the state, you've got highways that need to be built. You've got bridges that need to be fixed. You've got schools that need to be modernized. And that's what America used to do best. We used to build things -- built the Transcontinental Railroad; built the Golden Gate Bridge; the Hoover Dam; the Grand Central Station. There's no reason why we should sit here and watch the best highways and the newest airports being built in China. We should be building them right here in the United States of America. Right here in North Carolina.

This afternoon, the President will stop for a BBQ lunch and later visit West Wilkes High School in Miller's Creek, North Carolina.

President Barack Obama delivers remarks on the American Jobs Act at Asheville Regional Airport, Asheville, N.C., Oct. 17, 2011. The event kicks off the President’s three-day American Jobs Act Bus Tour. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

Weekly Address: "Made in America"

From a GM plant in Detroit, President Obama highlights the landmark trade agreements passed this week which will support tens of thousands of American jobs, level the playing field for American workers, and help us meet our goal of doubling our exports.

Transcript | Download mp4 | Download mp3

Vice President Joe Biden Discusses the American Jobs Act in Flint, Michigan

Vice President Joe Biden greets members of the audience after speaking about the American Jobs act at the fire station in Flint, Michigan, October 12, 2011. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)

Vice President Biden traveled to two Michigan cities this week to highlight how the American Jobs Act would help put cops and firefighters back on the beat and help modernize schools.

In Flint, Michigan, the Vice President made clear how the Jobs Act would both create jobs and protect the nation's "most basic obligation" to keep our citizens safe by putting cops and firefighters back to work. Over the past 18 months, Flint has been has been forced to cut its police force in half due to budget cuts at the same time violent crime has increased in the city.

Nationally, in the past 18 months, 10,000 cops have been laid off around the country, while 30,000 police vacancies have gone unfilled. Thousands of firefighters were laid off between 2009 and 2010, and another 7,000 could face possible layoffs this year.

"It's hard enough to do your job in good economic times. It's a tough job in good times," the Vice President told a group of Flint cops and firefighters assembled inside the city's fire department on Wednesday. "But it's almost impossible to serve the total needs of the community in bad economic times when you get cut in half."

The American Jobs Act includes $5 billion to support public safety jobs across the country. It will also dramatically improve the way cops, firefighters and other first responders are able to communicate with each other during emergency situations by deploying a nationwide public safety broadband network.

"I don't buy people who say there is nothing we can do," said the Vice President. "This is a fight for the soul of this country. It's a fight for the middle class. ... It's about making sure America's fire departments, police departments continue to be a large part of the American fabric and be able to do their job. It's about reversing the cycle of crime and fire and unemployment, and starting a new cycle of jobs and prosperity. It's about keeping you safe so you can keep all of us safe. And it's about a President and I who are prepared to fight like crazy to do whatever we can to make sure that you have the resources to be able to protect us."

Congress Passes President Obama’s Trade Measures to Support American Jobs and Exports

Last night, Congress passed four significant trade initiatives President Obama has advanced to help increase U.S. exports that support additional American jobs, and help American workers who need retraining and assistance when their jobs are affected by global competition.  The trade agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama – which we at USTR worked hard to make better at the President’s insistence – will strengthen and expand ties with strategic partners in Asia and Latin America even as they support tens of thousands of jobs here at home, from shop floors to farms to service firms across our country. And the renewal of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) reforms will ensure that workers get retraining and assistance for the 21st-century jobs they want and need.  

As I mentioned last week, when the President sent the legislation to Congress, there have recently been questions about whether trade supports jobs, and how.  We have a saying at USTR: “more exports, more jobs.”  Because every $1 billion of exports of American goods is estimated to support more than 6,000 additional jobs here at home.  And every billion dollars of services exports is estimated to support more than 4,500 jobs.  Since these trade agreements are estimated to increase U.S. goods exports alone by a combined total of at least $12 billion, they will support tens of thousands of real jobs and put more money in the pockets of hard-working Americans across the country. 

Furthermore, the U.S.-Korea trade agreement will open Korea’s $580 billion services market to highly competitive American companies – creating additional jobs for American service providers in sectors from delivery and telecommunications services to distribution, and energy and environmental services.  The Colombia and Panama agreements open up services sectors to American companies selling into those markets as well.  

Helping America’s Small Businesses Build a Clean Energy Future

Small businesses in emerging industries – like clean energy – have cutting-edge ideas that are strengthening our country and changing the world.  Today, we’re helping them continue to do just that in two major ways.

First, unlike larger firms, many small firms don’t have the staff or time to search for all of the federal opportunities that can help them grow and create jobs.

We’re pleased to announce that today, they’ve got a new tool with green.sba.gov, where they can find all federal opportunities in a single location.

How did this come about?  For the past year, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Small Business Administration worked together to help Navy tap into the innovation that is happening throughout America’s strong and growing number of small, clean-energy businesses.

One of the first, simplest efforts was to create a single web page where all of Navy’s green and renewable energy contracts could be easily found by small businesses.  Navy created that site in just a couple of months. 

When it was completed, we thought, “Why don’t we do this across the entire federal government?”

So we did. 

Putting Americans Back to Work with the American Jobs Act

Every day, President Obama reads ten letters from the public in order to stay in tune with America's issues and concerns. One recent one came from Alice Johnson of Oregon who, along with her husband, has been looking for a job for about two years. Last week, President Obama described Johnson's letter in his Weekly Address:

She writes, “I have faithfully applied for work every week…Of the hundreds of applications I have put in, I received interview requests for about 10…I too, am sick of all the fighting in Washington DC.  Please tell the Republicans that people are hurting and are hungry and need help, pass the jobs bill.”  Alice Johnson needs our help. 

After working hard her whole life and playing by the rules, Johnson is one of the millions of Americans who have been affected by the recession through no fault of their own. "I'm an honest, loyal, dependable person who has always worked," Johnson said. She knows there are many others going through the same experience.

The American Jobs Act will help create job opportunities for people like Johnson by providing a $4,000 tax credit to employers for hiring long-term unemployed workers. The Jobs Act will also prohibit employers from discriminating against unemployed workers when hiring.

The American Jobs Act Supports Jobs for Veterans

Iraq veteran Joe Kidd said one of the hardest parts of coming home was finding a job. After two deployments in Iraq, the first in 2007 and again in 2009, Kidd was appointed to the emergency room at Camp Lejeune and later became the Leading Petty Officer, managing about forty people. Yet, like many veterans, Kidd found it was difficult for potential employers to understand his experience, making finding a job outside of the service a challenge. 

“I had forty people underneath me and then I got out in April, you know thinking, hey some of this should transfer, but no nothing really transferred. That’s pretty much been the hardest thing, knowing that nothing transfers….employers don’t understand military jobs”

Last month when Kidd heard President Obama introduce the American Jobs Act from the First Lady's box at a joint session of Congress, he was heartened to hear that it included a call for ensuring we have a career-ready military. Both sides of Congress stood in support as President Obama spoke about our national obligation to help veterans find jobs:  

Pass this jobs bill, and companies will get extra tax credits if they hire America’s veterans. We ask these men and women to leave their careers, leave their families, risk their lives to fight for our country. The last thing they should have to do is fight for a job when they come home. 

The American Jobs Act includes tax credits to encourage businesses to hire unemployed veterans and that makes sense to Kidd. "Hiring a veteran is one of the most patriotic things you can do," Kidd said. And with the American Jobs Act there is an added incentive. 

Businesses that hire veterans who have been unemployed six months or longer would receive a tax credit up to $5,600, and that credit rises to $9,600 for veterans who also have service-connected disabilities. That is why President Obama is urging Congress to pass the Jobs Act right away.

High Tech Manufacturers See American Jobs Act "Creating Opportunities at Every Turn"

Wendy Jameson and Scott Grimshaw are the founders of ColnaTec, a “greentech” manufacturing business in Arizona

Wendy Jameson, the co-founder of ColnaTec in Gilbert, Arizona says that the American Jobs Act will enable her company to "concentrate on what we do best – putting Americans and American innovation to work. Every dollar saved by the American Jobs Act is one more dollar we can spend on innovation. This changes the growth trajectory of our company, creating opportunities at every turn. In these difficult times, with most Americans worried about what tomorrow holds, who wouldn’t want that?"

Jameson and Scott Grimshaw’s “green tech” manufacturing business lives up to its founders' motto: “fear mediocrity.” Since its launch in October 2009, ColnaTec has become one of the world’s only firms that makes the electronic sensors needed to manufacture thin film solar cells and display screens used in devices such as cell phones. The holder of numerous patents, ColnaTec has received two research grants from the Department of Energy for a new self-cleaning sensor, which will not only be more accurate than existing models, but also capable of clearing off the coating that forms on them, which leads to sensor failure – a process Grimshaw has said will work like a “self-cleaning oven.” 

The co-founders, who met on Twitter, say “can’t” is a word they don’t believe in. Jameson, who has 25 years experience in sales, marketing and business strategy is the CEO, and Grimshaw, the founder of two other high tech manufacturing businesses, is the chief technology officer.  Their business (which is named after Jameson's sons, Colton and Nathan) is self-funded, and the owners say their aim is to develop manufacturing products that haven’t existed before – designing those products for long life and the highest accuracy and efficiency possible. 

Restaurant Entrepreneur Says American Jobs Act Will Help Small Businesses Get Back on Track

Phillip Maung, the founder and CEO of Hissho Sushi arrived in the U.S in 1989 with $13 in his pocket. Today his company operates more than 400 sushi bars across the country.

Philip Maung, founder and CEO of Hissho Sushi, believes that Congress should pass the American Jobs Act so that small businesses like his can fast track their growth. “The American Jobs Act has provisions that will motivate small businesses owners like me to expand in an environment in which we have been forced to put some hiring decisions on hold for quite some time. Hopefully, with these incentives, small businesses will get back on track and our company, along with many other companies, can continue in our role of being the driving engine behind job growth.” 

Maung arrived in this Los Angeles from Burma in 1989 with $13 in his pocket.  He had a dream of making something of himself and wanted to make his family proud.  In 1998, Maung and his wife started Hissho Sushi in their dining room.  What began as a tiny company providing fresh sushi to supermarkets and cafes has evolved into a dynamic foodservice and distribution enterprise, headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hissho Sushi now employs more than 200 people and trains sushi chefs, distributes sushi ingredients throughout the United States and operates more than 400 sushi bars across the country.