Governor Greg Gianforte was in the mood to celebrate on Wednesday when details were reported about the number of new jobs created in Montana.

Gianforte shared the numbers with KGVO News.

“Well, we got great news today,” began Governor Gianforte. “We set a goal, an ambitious goal of creating at least 10,000 new jobs in the state of Montana in my first year in the office above $50,000 a year, so these are good paying jobs, and we blew it away. We exceeded that number by 30 percent.”

Gianforte dug deeper into the jobs report for more details.

“The private sector created 13,000 jobs paying over $50,000 a year in wages during my first year 2021,” he said. “It happened by cutting taxes, cutting red tape, attracting new businesses to the state, and investing in our workforce so that Montanans now have better opportunities. I'm thrilled with the result, but we're just getting started.”

Gianforte acknowledged many of the new business-related programs his administration has helped to initiate that resulted in the new jobs.

“That's why we're investing in building workforce pipelines for companies here in Montana,” he said. “This is helping Montanans get the skills they need to get into these higher wage jobs. The M-Tech program that provides scholarships for trades is just one example. We just announced last week that we created over 500 new apprenticeships in the first half of this year. That's going to contribute to better numbers next year, as we build out and skill up Montanans so they can earn a wage that allows them to prosper right here in the state.”

Gianforte also celebrated the fact that Montana has become a ‘go-to’ destination for new business creation.

“We now have the seventh strongest economy in the country based on public data,” he said. “In addition, we were also just recently recognized as the best state in the country to start a business. So, these numbers are for wages. They do exclude people that are self-employed or have their own LLC. That means the numbers are actually understated in this report that we put out today.”

With 550,112 Montanans employed in June, the Governor’s office said that Montana has recovered 146 percent of the jobs lost at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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