WASHINGTON – General Electric Co. plans to hire 5,000 veterans over the next five years and invest $580 million to expand its aviation business.

The announcements Monday were part of a four-day event that the global conglomerate is hosting with partners in Washington, D.C., that focuses on issues such as manufacturing and job creation in America.

GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt heads up President Obama’s 27-member jobs council, which also includes AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, AOL co-founder Steve Case and Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg.

GE said Monday that its “Hiring Our Heroes” partnership will help match veterans with jobs. The company, whose products range from jet engines to light bulbs, will also team with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to sponsor 400 veterans’ job fairs this year. GE currently employs more than 10,000 veterans and has about 100 U.S. employee reservists currently serving overseas.

In addition, its aviation unit will add more than 400 new manufacturing jobs and open three plants in Ellisville, Miss., Auburn, Ala., and Dayton next year. GE said that the plants are part of its efforts to create or rebuild 16 facilities and more than 12,000 new jobs.

The GE Aviation unit based in the northern Cincinnati suburb of Evendale expects commercial engine production to grow from 3,000 last year to 3,800 in 2013.

Spokesman Rick Kennedy told The Associated Press the business has added 1,000 jobs in the past year, with hundreds more coming at three new operations.

That includes one in Dayton that’s in the works.

Kennedy said GE Aviation employs 7,500 in the Cincinnati area.

It had a setback last year when the Defense Department canceled an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter alternative engine, but jobs were absorbed into commercial work.

GE started production on its first new appliance line in more than 50 years last week at Appliance Park in Louisville, Ky.

The company expects to double its number of engineering interns to more than 5,000 as part of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness initiative to graduate 10,000 more engineers a year in the U.S.

GE says this often leads to jobs, as 80 percent of its full-time engineers have been hired from the internship program.

It has more than 19,000 engineers on staff.