Immelt accepts mission to generate jobs in U.S. President recruits GE executive to lead competitiveness panel By ERIC ANDERSON Business Editor Published: 12:00 a.m., Saturday, January 22, 2011
SCHENECTADY -- President Barack Obama hopes the leader of the nation's second-largest exporter can revive the United States' ability to create jobs.
Obama told cheering crowds Friday at the General Electric Co. plant in Schenectady that company chairman and chief executive Jeffrey Immelt will head the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
The President was in town to highlight GE's success at innovation, and the jobs it has created as it builds massive generators and steam turbines for countries like India and Saudi Arabia.
The local plant exports 90 percent of what it produces, and Obama would like to see that happen at other U.S. companies.
"I think that's what they have to do," Immelt said during a reception later Friday for local business leaders. "Ninety-five percent of consumers are outside the United States."
Job growth has been lackluster, the President admitted during his Schenectady speech.
The nation has added about 1 million jobs over the past year, but that pace needs to accelerate into "overdrive," Obama said.
"(M)illions of people are still out there looking for work," Obama said. "And even here in Schenectady, as well as GE is doing, I know everybody here knows a neighbor or friend or relative who's still out of work."
U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook, said Immelt showed courage by "the fact that he accepted the challenge."
And Charles Steiner, president of the Chamber of Schenectady County, also thought Immelt was a good choice for the post.
"Talk about the right guy at the right time," Steiner said. "Where better to look for that leadership than General Electric?"
While much of the focus Friday was on the turbine and generator business at GE, the company also is about to open an advanced battery manufacturing plant that will employ 350. It has located its renewable energy headquarters at the GE campus, which employs more than 650 people.
The company employs 7,000 people in the Capital Region, even after spinning off its plastics business in Selkirk and its silicones and sealants business in Waterford.
The new post chairing the President's jobs and competitiveness council isn't the first such job Immelt has held during the Obama administration.
Earlier, he was an adviser on a panel headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker that helped steer the nation through the financial collapse.
At the time, the nation was facing another Great Depression, Obama said. But the panel helped "steer our country from deep recession into recovery."
Immelt said the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness will include CEOs, small-business owners and entrepreneurs......................>>>>.............>>>>..............Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/defa.....36.php#ixzz1BlhAOIM5
When Imelt took over GE their stock was $40 a share. Imelt elected to go into the real estate market in a big way and when it collapsed so did the GE stock. I am not going to hold my breath until all those jobs that he's going to create come to be, If we follow Spain's' lead, being that Spain is light years ahead of everyone else in the green movement, for every job created two will be lost and that's not the type of growth that's going to help us solve our economic problems.
They just label it Green Energy.....it's just innovation....no innovation means stagnation....there's only so many waiter/waitressing/housekeeping jobs we can have.....the conversation is in ironing out the Trade Cap Crap.....is what we have currently no good? of course not....but in order to keep us 'moving' we have to make something new......not everyone can work at Apple/Microsoft/Google/Facebook etc.........our tech is removing jobs....even in healthcare...I see it first hand....there is a shakedown via TECH...it wont be pretty...but in the end it will become just a story about our future history....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Immelt is going to help create jobs in this country???? That is almost laughable. The same guy that closed down most american sites and outsourced them overseas. This will be interesting!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Immelt is going to help create jobs in this country???? That is almost laughable. The same guy that closed down most american sites and outsourced them overseas. This will be interesting!
It talks about how while GE has closed multiple facilities and eliminated 3000 jobs, that in other areas it has hired 6000 people...
Sorry....don't have time to read the article....but what caliber were the 6000 created jobs as in comparison to the outsourced jobs? Just askin'
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Sorry....don't have time to read the article....but what caliber were the 6000 created jobs as in comparison to the outsourced jobs? Just askin'
Stop getting hung up on outsourced jobs. You're wasting your time pinning that on Immelt. Jack was all about globalization. Immelt has been talking about the rebirth of American manufacturing for at least a couple years now.
Those 3000 jobs were I believe mostly layoffs, not people who were replaced internationally. I've read stories that there were a lot of people in their finance organization who worked 40 hours, but only had like 15 hours of work to do. And they got paid lots of money.
I don't know how accurate those reports are, but from my recollection - the finance business is where the impact really was.
Why don't you ask GE what they intend to pay for new workers at the "Battery Plant"? How about $10.50 an hour to start?..You can do just as good working for Stewarts or Walmart, Welcome to the new reality in America folks... to compete with China we will have plenty of these types of wages.
"Arguing with liberals is like playing chess with a pigeon; no matter how good I am at chess, the pigeon is just going to knock out the pieces, crap on the board, and strut around like it is victorious." - Author Unknown
General Electric's WMC Mortgage Cuts Subprime Jobs (Update4) By Jody Shenn - March 9, 2007 16:29 EST March 9 (Bloomberg) -- General Electric Co.'s U.S. mortgage unit will curtail lending and fire 460 workers, or 20 percent of staff, amid a rise in defaults by people with poor credit.
GE's WMC Mortgage, the fifth-biggest subprime lender in the U.S., this week stopped making mortgages without down payments or to borrowers with credit scores below 600. WMC last year had $33 billion in new loan volume, according to industry newsletter Inside B&C Lending.
``We've realigned our resources to fit the size of the market,'' said Brandie Young, a spokeswoman for Burbank, California-based WMC. The lender is adjusting underwriting policies amid a ``fluid market,'' she said.
More than 20 lenders have closed or sought buyers since the start of 2006 as consumers with spotty credit have trouble meeting mortgage payments. About 10.12 percent of subprime home loans in securities were delinquent by at least 90 days, in foreclosure or already turned into seized property on Dec. 31, up from 5.37 percent in May 2005 and the most in at least seven years, according to Friedman Billings Ramsey Group Inc.
``The economics of the subprime lending business are horrible,'' Matt Howlett, an analyst at Fox-Pitt Kelton Inc. in New York, said in an interview.
Why don't you ask GE what they intend to pay for new workers at the "Battery Plant"? How about $10.50 an hour to start?..You can do just as good working for Stewarts or Walmart, Welcome to the new reality in America folks... to compete with China we will have plenty of these types of wages.
unskilled labor WONT be attending The Lion King or dining at Apperativo.......and especially NOT purchasing a home in Schenectady county, much less the city.....now if GE could get out from under their blood sucking, campus gin mill running union...they just might do Schenectady better.....
the union has too much of the blanket on their side of the bed........
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Logged
Obama is totally clueless on now to create jobs. More crony capitalism Schenectady Stylin. This smells like recycled manure.
