The General Electric CEO who chairs President Barack Obama’s jobs and competitiveness council said Wednesday there is no magic potion to jobs creation, but the panel is devising pragmatic plans to put people back to work, The Associated Press reports.
Jeffrey Immelt, chairman and CEO of Fairfield-based GE, spoke Wednesday with employees and reporters during a visit to his company’s gas turbine plant in Greenville, S.C., which employs 3,300 people including 1,700 engineers.
Immelt said his four months on the Obama advisory panel has taught him that even his company can be held accountable for where it creates jobs. He said the panel is working on devising a hundred 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 are things that can be done. For example, he said, America suffers from a shortage of engineers.
He said the panel has 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 believe even more can be done to educate, train and hire engineers.
GE will hire around 1,000 engineers during that time, Immelt told reporters in comments later in the day.
GE relies on engineers to develop innovative products and produce the items 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 said all high-tech firms should double their hiring of engineers.
“That would send a powerful message,” Immelt said, adding it would tell technical schools, universities and workers that an education leads to employment.
