Washington: US President Barack Obama on Tuesday said his administration has been successful in “pulling the economy back from brink” but sounded a cautious tone on unemployment, saying he expects job losses to continue for some more time.

“We have pulled the economy back from the brink,” Obama said during a meeting of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board at the White House.

“We got good news last week showing that for the first time in over a year the economy was actually growing once again. And we have seen some (economic) indicators that manufacturing is beginning to pick up,” he said.

“That’s all good news and we are pleased that the actions that we took swiftly through the Recovery Act helped to stem what could have been a disastrous situation for the economy and we are starting to see stabilisation and, indeed, some improvement,” Obama said.

However, Obama expects continued job losses in the weeks and months to come.

“As I said before, there (is) always a lag of several months between businesses starting to make profits again and investing again, and then actually rehiring again,” he said.

“But I want to emphasise I am confident that having moved the economy on the right track, that if we apply some good common sense and reinvigorate that sector of our economy that’s based on innovation and dynamism and entrepreneurship, that there’s no reason why we’re not going to be able to not only create jobs, but the kind of sustainable economic growth that everybody is looking for,” Obama said.