[jakebaker]

It's almost certainly a "job-year" [1] which is an economic construct representing the equivalent of one person being employed for one year. For example, a 6 month construction project with 2 guys still equals one job year.

Most PR-style announcements like this seems to simplify job-years to jobs.

There is also direct employment (# of people hired for the project itself, e.g. construction) vs indirect employment (# of people hired in supply chain) vs induced employment (# of people hired by associate economic impact, e.g. construction worker spends money earned on project in local community and supports retail) [2], all of which may be consolidated for a PR style announcement.

[1] http://prospect.org/article/what-heck-job-year [2] https://msu.edu/user/stynes/mirec/concepts.htm