I'm not sure of the meaning of that statement. Anybody can do something, perhaps dig a ditch and fill it in again, and file appropriate paperwork to be recognized as a company by the state. If that activity does not create more value for society than it destroys, society ought not to encourage it, even though it creates one or more "jobs".

Also, a hole-based stimulus package might actually help the town's economy, just like a big government project to paint murals on every wall would. So in a sense, towns are agnostic about the big picture. This shows the mindset of the politicians who are trying to create jobs: the value provided to them is the income that the employees make, which they can tax the spending of.

You don't talk about creating jobs if you are a customer that will be buying the products of the big plant. In fact, creating jobs is a negative (an expense) for every organization involved except for the local government. It is the customers of US steel that care about the importance of whatever it is that the jobs are doing, and the local government that cares about the existence of the jobs.