Job gains in environment, health care
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Stacey Vanek-Smith:: Unemployment in this country is fast approaching 10 percent. But a report out from the White House this morning says there will be bright spots. The Council of Economic Advisers reports green jobs and health care jobs on the way. Marketplace’s Mitchell Hartman reports
Mitchell Hartman: The Council of Economic Advisers’ report will say the biggest job gains in the next few years will be in environmental work and health care, outpacing fields like financial services.
All this talk of “next-gen jobs” comes against a backlash against the administration’s $787 billion in stimulus spending, which critics say hasn’t stemmed the bloodletting in the labor market.
Here’s Republican Senator John Kyl yesterday on ABC’s “This Week”:
John Kyl: The reality is it hasn’t helped yet. Only about 6.8 percent of the money has actually been spent. What I’ve proposed is, after you complete the contracts that are already committed, the things that are in the pipeline, stop it.
The administration says cancelling the stimulus now is exactly the wrong prescription. Today’s report on new-job growth will predictably back that up. It forecasts a rebound in manufacturing and construction jobs later this year as more stimulus money flows into the economy.
I’m Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.
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