Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said he's worried about Americans out of work because jobs have migrated overseas and promoted job training as Democrats say his economic policies have failed.

``There are people looking for work because jobs have gone overseas,'' Bush said in remarks at a high school in Harrisburg on his $503 million job-training plan. ``We need to act.''

Pennsylvania, a state with 21 electoral votes, the fifth largest chunk toward the 270 needed to win the White House in November, has lost about 81,000 jobs since he took office.

Bush is defending his record on jobs as polls show Americans are unhappy with how he's handled the economy. An Associated Press/Ipsos Public Affairs poll Feb. 2-4 showed 53 percent disapproved of the way he has handed the issue.

The economy has shed about 2.3 million jobs since Bush's term began, while the White House projects a $521 billion federal budget deficit this year.

``From Missouri to Wisconsin to Ohio, from the heartland to both coasts, the wreckage of the Bush economy is all around us,'' Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, said after winning primaries in Tennessee and Virginia on Tuesday night.

`Bush Economy'

``In the places where so many jobs have been lost, people who are living through the Bush economy are now being told there's a turnaround, that things are better,'' Kerry said. ``But they don't see it in their own lives, their jobs or their paychecks.''

Kerry also has criticized comments by Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, that the movement of white-collar jobs overseas has economic benefits that may help boost U.S. growth.

Around the U.S., companies as Motorola Inc., General Electric Co. and Intel Corp. are contracting their jobs to overseas workers, including India, the Chicago Tribune reported Feb. 8. The Economic Times of India reported earlier this month that media companies such as Time Warner Inc. and Walt Disney Co. were considering outsourcing parts of their information technology and back-office operations to India.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, also disagreed with Mankiw's remarks Monday. ``I understand that Mr. Mankiw is a brilliant economic theorist, but his theory fails a basic test of real economics,'' Hastert said yesterday. ``An economy suffers when jobs disappear.''

Return Visit

Today's trip is Bush's 25th to Pennsylvania as president; it's the state he's visited most often except for Texas, his home.

Bush, who lost Pennsylvania to Democrat Al Gore in 2000, faces a challenge this year after repealing tariffs on imported steel in December. The state is one of the largest U.S. steel- producers.

Pennsylvania's unemployment has increased to 5.1 percent from 4.2 percent when Bush took over the presidency, Labor Department figures show. The U.S. jobless rate is 5.6 percent.

Nationwide, the economy added 366,000 jobs in the past five months, inflation is low and home ownership is at an all-time high.

``The numbers are good but I don't worry about numbers, I worry about people,'' Bush said. ``There are still some people looking for work because of the recession.''

Job Cuts

Pennsylvania has lost 30,900 manufacturing jobs since December 2002, according to the Harrisburg-based Keystone Research Center, a non-partisan jobs research group, which cited U.S. Labor Department figures.

Rohm & Haas Co., the Philadelphia maker of specialty chemicals and Morton salt, has cut about 1,260 jobs and closed 13 plants to save $200 million a year as profit declined. Another 540 workers and five more plants will be shut this year, company spokesman Brian McPeak said.

Cigna Corp., the No. 3 U.S. health insurer, plans to fire workers this year, to make up for pricing errors and computer problems as group health membership falls, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported last month, citing an internal memo from chief executive H. Edward Hanway.

Mankiw's forecast Monday projected the national jobless rate would decline to 5.6 percent this year and 5.4 percent in 2005 from an average of 6 percent in 2003.

Democrats dismissed the report. ``Claiming that jobs are coming does not create them,'' House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said yesterday.

`Confident'

``I'm confident about the future of this country,'' Bush said today. ``We've got the best workers in the world.''

To boost job creation, Bush has proposed a $503 million program that includes $250 million in grants to the nation's 1,100 public and private community colleges to help train workers for high-growth industries. ``You've got to have a skill set that makes you employable,'' Bush said.

The proposal includes $33 million in expanded Pell grants for low-income students of up to $1,000 per student. It also includes $100 million to improve reading and $120 million to improve math education.

To contact the reporter on this story: Holly Rosenkrantz in Harrisburg at hrosenkrantz@Bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 12, 2004 12:36 EST