RICHMOND — With the unemployment rate having reversed course in May, jumping slightly to 9.1 percent, Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Alexandria, and Rep. Frank R. Wolf, R-Fairfax County, are looking to steal jobs back from abroad.

The bipartisan duo has launched an initiative designed to create manufacturing and technology jobs through a forgivable loan program targeted toward rural or economically stressed regions of the country.

“GE created a lot of jobs last year. They were not in America,” Wolf said Friday in a conference call with reporters. “Those jobs need to come home to America.”

“I think we were all disappointed to see the economic numbers and job numbers come out in the last month,” Warner added. “We in Congress have got to take action.”

The loan program would offer up to $5,000 for each new manufacturing or technology job created in targeted areas. The loan would have to be repaid if that job is not maintained for at least five years.

Warner said the cost advantage of outsourcing has greatly diminished with the increased availability of broadband Internet in rural communities such as Southwest Virginia.

“Up until this point, the federal government has done very little for these kinds of site location efforts. We’ve left it to the states and localities,” Warner said. “We’re getting our lunch eaten sometimes by the flexibility the foreign governments can show in trying to attract jobs.”

The pool for the loans would be about $100 million, Warner said, to be funded through the U.S. Commerce Department’s budget.

“It is not more government spending,” stressed Wolf, saying that the program would be funded through a reallocation of existing dollars.

The initiative, which has already gained 10 co-sponsors in the House from both sides of the aisle, would also work toward bolstering industry-specific certification programs and expedite federal financing to allow certain companies to increase export capacity.

“Ninety-five percent of all the new customers for American business in the 21st century are not going to be American,” Warner said.

Wolf added that the legislation would also launch a study on the feasibility of tax breaks for companies that bring jobs back from overseas.