Job-panel chief: Ideas, not magic

GREENVILLE, S.C. - The chairman of President Obama's jobs and competitiveness council said Wednesday that there was no magic potion to jobs creation but said the panel was devising pragmatic plans to put people back to work.

The chairman, Jeffrey Immelt, who is also chief executive officer of General Electric Co., spoke with employees and reporters during a visit to his company's gas-turbine plant in Greenville, which employs 3,300 people, including 1,700 engineers.

Immelt said the panel was working on devising different business plans for every sector of the economy, with practical steps to help create jobs.

"It's very unlikely the jobs council's going to find something that will be a magic potion to create jobs," he said. But he noted there were things that could be done. For example, he said, America suffers from a shortage of engineers.

He said that the panel had asked all Fortune 500 companies to double their hiring of engineers over the coming year but that the two dozen business leaders in the group believed even more could be done to educate, train, and hire engineers.

GE will hire about 1,000 engineers during that time, Immelt told reporters.

GE relies on engineers to develop and make products that can be exported around the world. The gas turbines at the Greenville plant are all produced for export, Immelt said. India and Saudi Arabia are its biggest customers.

Immelt, who was tapped by Obama in January to lead the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, said all high-tech firms should double their hiring of engineers.

"That would send a powerful message," he said, adding it would tell technical schools, universities, and workers that an education leads to employment.

"This is the way to generate job security," he said.

The U.S. economy generated only 18,000 net jobs in June and the unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent, the government reported last week. In May, employers added only 25,000 jobs.

Immelt said, however, that for a huge multinational company such as GE, "business is good."

Growing energy demands in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and Russia result in interest in his company's energy-related products, including alternative energy sources like wind- and solar-power products.