What does job creation mean?

We have been hearing a lot about the government’s promise to create jobs and to reduce unemployment rate. However, I am curious what that really means.
Are they trying to come up with grand projects like construction of Hoover dam in 30’s and sending man to the Moon in 60’s? These kind of project will produce only temporary jobs.
It is an irreversible trend to mechanized all manufacturing and packaging process. Once, automation is done it costs much less than to hire and pay people. I have noticed even CVS cut down the number of people working in the counter replacing them with self-check-out machines. In short, all the easy and manual jobs are disappearing.
So, then we could say we will train people for jobs requiring expertise and skill. However, aren’t these also supposed to be limited? We already have highly educated college graduates with no jobs. Isn’t it because those non-manual jobs are also limited, all those highly educated people go and look for jobs in banks and hedge funds?
What does the government mean when it says they will create jobs?