U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill's "summer vacation" from Congress has involved a lot of travel around Missouri, she said Thursday afternoon.
"I've visited 18 or 19 different manufacturing facilities over the last several weeks (and) I've met with a lot of different businesses," she said after meeting for about an hour with leaders of the Jefferson City Area Chamber of Commerce. "I really want to talk with people about job growth.
"And people want us to have more jobs and they want us to spend less money. That means we've got to listen carefully, and figure out ways - besides just throwing a bunch of money at it - that we can enhance job growth."
Some tell her the government's interfering too much with the economic recovery, while others argue it needs to do more.
"A lot of these manufacturers are telling me they are not getting the applicants that have the skill sets they need," McCaskill noted. "If we've got 8.7 percent unemployment, and then we've got employers telling me they don't have anybody they can hire - we've got a problem in our education system and in our job training system."