Google, Disney chiefs due at Obama jobs summit
About 130 experts from unions, government, academia and other companies will seek ways to jumpstart job creation.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Executives from Google and Walt Disney will join other company chiefs, academics, labor leaders and mayors at President Obama's jobs summit this week, the White House said Sunday.
Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) CEO Eric Schmidt and Disney (DIS, Fortune 500) chief Bob Iger will be among about 130 people attending Thursday's meeting, according to a partial guestlist.
Other prominent CEOs slated to attend include Randall Stephenson of AT&T (T, Fortune 500), Brian Roberts of Comcast (CMCSA, Fortune 500), James McNerney of Boeing (BA, Fortune 500) and Frederick Smith of FedEx (FDX, Fortune 500).
They'll be joined by such experts as Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist, former Fed vice chairman Alan Blinder, United Steel Workers president Leo Gerard and San Antonio mayor Julian Castro.
Obama discussed the summit, aimed at helping solve an employment crisis that has cost the nation 7.3 million jobs since the start of 2008, during a cabinet meeting last week. (Congress' next trick: Pull jobs out of a hat)
"We are going to be bringing together people from all across the country ... to explore how we can jumpstart the hiring that typically lags behind economic growth, but we don't want to wait," the president said. "We want to see if we can accelerate it."
The summit will come on the eve of the government's November jobs report. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expect a decline of 114,000 jobs, less than the 190,000 jobs lost in October. The unemployment rate is expected to remain at a 26-year high of 10.2%.
The Obama administration, which got a $787 billion stimulus package approved by Congress early this year in its effort to stem job losses, is not alone in trying to solve the problem. House leaders have said they're aiming to vote on a jobs bill by Dec. 18. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has indicated the Senate would take up a jobs bill after it completes work on health reform.
-- CNN correspondent Ed Henry contributed to this report. 
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