Contractors report 30,000 stimulus jobs

WASHINGTON (AP) - Businesses that received federal contracts under the economic stimulus are reporting more than 30,000 jobs saved or created in the first months of the program.

Numbers released by a government watchdog Thursday offer the first hard data on the effect of the stimulus. These numbers only reflect jobs linked to federal contracts, such as construction at military bases or within national parks. That's a tiny fraction of the $787 billion stimulus. Broader data on local spending won't be available until late this month.

The job tally is part of the largest-ever attempt to measure the success of a government program in real time.

While the economy is showing signs of recovering from recession, Americans continue to lose their jobs. The White House says things would have been far worse without the stimulus