TULALIP — Federal economic stimulus funding is proving successful, a federal labor department official said this week.
Assistant Labor Secretary Jane Oates visited with Tulalip Tribes officials on Tuesday to praise tribal leaders for labor agreements on the reservation and their work to ensure that tribal members have employment opportunities.
While there, Oates also talked about the stimulus — the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — intended to help create jobs and promote consumer spending.
In March, the economy gained 162,000 jobs nationally, but the unemployment rate remained unchanged at about 9.7 percent, labor department officials said.
“Every day we see the benefits of the recovery act,” Oates said. “For example, without the extension of unemployment benefits, many families in this country would have lost their homes.”
The federal government is keeping close tabs on the growth of what Oates called “real jobs.”
The production of solar panels, wind turbines and other green technology will be a key to the country’s long-term economic recovery, Oates said. Helping the owners of small businesses better market themselves is crucial, too, she said.
“A highly skilled work force is needed to compete internationally,” Oates said. “For now, the recovery act was the vitamin B12 shot in the arm that we needed. The paced and multi-program approach we have taken was very smart.”
Oates filled in on the local visit for U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, who was detained in Washington, D.C., following Monday’s coal mining disaster in West Virginia that claimed at least 25 lives.
Workplace safety is a priority with Solis, Oates said, and the recent loss of five lives at the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes also grabbed the attention of the Obama administration.
The number of safety investigators in the labor department has increased over the past year, Oates said. “With cutbacks in previous administrations, we had too few people to enforce our safety laws.”
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com.
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