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County Adding Jobs Courtesy Federal Stimulus

With Unemployment High the County is Slowly Adding Jobs

POSTED: 5:54 pm PST November 4, 2009
UPDATED: 9:41 am PST November 5, 2009

The county's unemployment rate continues to hover around 14-percent, but federal stimulus money is slowly starting to put folks back to work.

Nationally, 640,000 jobs were created in the first quarter by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

According to an ABC 23 analysis of recovery.gov, the county, as a whole, has seen about 460 jobs created or saved, but more jobs will created as the county starts work on new projects.

The County of Kern has received $70 million of the $787 billion stimulus.

"There will be many more jobs created then we have already reported," said Allan Krauter, County Legislative Analyst. "Because as the payroll figures come in from the highway projects and the airport project, those are construction jobs."

The county has reported that construction work on the Alpha Taxiway at Meadows Field has created six jobs thus far, but that number will rise to 12 when the work is complete.

In Mojave, drainage system work similar to what has gone on in East Bakersfield in recent years will create 50 construction jobs.

But counting the jobs isn't easy.

"It has been a challenge to keep track of jobs because in some cases the federal government changes the requirement for counting jobs," Krauter said.

For example, The county originally reported more than 1,264 summer youth jobs created through the Employer's Training Resource Program, but that number is now at 348, with an additional 30 ETR staff positions and another 38 jobs.

Keeping track of all the money being spent and all the jobs being created or saved are a variety of websites, the county has one, the state has one and then there's recovery.gov where everything is broken down by zip code.

For example the six jobs at the airport fall under 93308, while 93301 reports nearly 58 jobs.

Including 34.5 at Golden Empire Transit, as $8.1 million in grant money is paying for new fareboxes and 27 new busses with 10 being added to the fleet.

"It's also going to allow us to hire additional drivers as we get those new busses out on the road," said Gina Hayden, GET spokesperson.

And done the road Krauter says expect even more jobs.

"It hasn't been the quick fuse that everybody had hoped but its coming and we're ready to spend it," said Krauter.

For more on the recovery, here are the websites:

www.recovery.gov recovery.ca.gov http://www.co.kern.ca.us/arra-grants/default.asp
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