Contractors Report Job Gains in Stimulus Work In the first reports by recipients of Recovery Act funds, federal contractors said they have created or saved 30,000 jobs in the early months. Several watchdog groups said the reports, filed with the Recovery Board, probably understate the number of jobs because they include projects that are still in the planning stages and have not started hiring. White House Chief Economist Jared Bernstein said the job figures exceeded administration projections, but acknowledged, “It is too soon to draw any global conclusions from this partial and preliminary data.” The Obama administration hopes to create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year. The first reports represent a tiny fraction of the hundreds of billions that will eventually be spent. Military construction is the biggest item in the reports, which covered contracts awarded through Oct. 10; more of that is to come as dozens of military hospital construction contracts are awarded in the next few months. Most contracts for highway projects, which are awarded by state and local governments, will be reported in late October. The Recovery Act requires the use of fixed-price contracts and competitive procedures “to the maximum extent possible.” However, a chart on the Recovery.gov website shows $7.8 billion was spent on contracts that were not fixed price, not competitive or both, as of Sept. 8, before the contractors submitted their reports. Three nonprofit groups that have been tracking the Recovery Act criticized the data for what they called very disappointing quality and presentation. While praising President Obama’s commitment to transparency, Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, said the website limitations make it impossible to do a meaningful analysis. “The jobs data should be viewed with extreme caution,” he said in a statement. OMB Watch, Good Jobs First and the Economic Policy Institute said downloads are structured so that a national analysis requires 150 downloads. CNNmoney.com reported that the largest contract listed in the report, a $1.4 billion award to vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur Inc., was an error; the actual amount was $10.4 million. The website ProPublica.org says it has cleaned up the formatting and compiled the Recovery.gov data into two datasets, one for contractors and one for subcontractors. They are available at www.propublica.org/ion/stimulus/item/download-data-on-federal-stimulus-contracts-and-jobs-1016..