$3.9 billion in stimulus money has yet to produce many jobs in Oregon.
Federal and state officials say the stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has already begun creating jobs, but many people are still waiting for them.
Bob Shiprack, executive secretary of the Oregon Building Trades Council, says some of the construction workers he represents will get jobs on Oregon Department of Transportation road projects and a few more on Department of Environmental Quality water projects. But he hasn’t yet seen much impact. Two years ago, unemployment among the construction trades was about 5 percent, Shiprack says, and today it is nearly 30 percent – unchanged over the last five months.
“What I see is a kind of holding pattern,” Shiprack says.
Read the full story at the Portland Tribune.
