Patrick: Close To 5,000 New Jobs From Stimulus

Gov. Deval Patrick has announced that new numbers show the federal stimulus package added an additional 5,000 jobs in Massachusetts during the last three months of 2009.

In a statement Saturday, Patrick said the new figure means that nearly 14,000 jobs have been created between October and the end of December.

Massachusetts state agencies received around $4.3 billion in federal stimulus awards from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act enacted in February.

The governor's announcement comes as the state's unemployment rate jumped to 9.4 percent in December after dropping for two consecutive months.