President Obama announced on Friday the award of $2.3 billion in tax credits for clean energy manufacturing — part of a broader push by his administration to stimulate job growth during the highest period of sustained unemployment in decades.

“Building a robust clean energy sector is how we will create the jobs of the future.” — Barack Obama

“Building a robust clean energy sector is how we will create the jobs of the future,” said Mr. Obama, according to prepared remarks.

The Labor Department reported on Friday that nonfarm payrolls shed 85,000 jobs in December, and the unemployment rate held steady at 10 percent, the highest level of joblessness since the early 1980s.

In a statement, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said the tax credits would spur an additional $5 billion of private capital investment in the clean energy manufacturing sector.

The tax credits are worth up to 30 percent of the cost of each project, resulting in a total investment of about $7.7 billion. Funding for the tax credits will come from the $787 billion economic recovery package approved by Congress in early 2009.

Tax credits were awarded to 183 projects in 43 states, and will create more than 17,000 jobs in clean technology manufacturing, the White House said. The projects must be in service by 2014, but approximately 30 percent of them will be completed by 2010, the administration estimated.

A partnership between the Treasury and Energy departments developed and instituted the tax credit program, which will support the manufacture of wind, solar and geothermal energy equipment as well as fuel cells, electric cars, and carbon capture and sequestration technology.

Recipients of the credits included Itron Inc. of Liberty Lake, Wash., to manufacture “smart meters” for the residential market, and TPI Composites Inc., to build a manufacturing plant in Nebraska to produce wind turbine blades.

According to TPI, the factory will create more than 200 new jobs.

PPG Industries of Pittsburgh received tax credits for its production of a coating to make solar cells more efficient, and to manufacture a tire tread component to improve fuel economy.

The tax credits will help restore American competitiveness in the clean energy sector, said Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

“The world urgently needs to move toward clean energy technologies, and the United States has the opportunity to lead in this new industrial revolutions,” Mr. Chu said in a statement.