WASHINGTON - PRESIDENT Barack Obama said on Thursday that he was confident the US economy would recover, despite new data showing unemployment at a 26-year-high of 9.5 per cent, which dampened hopes of a quick rebound.

President Obama said the latest jobless figures, revealing the economy shed 467,000 jobs last month, were 'sobering' but insisted there were signs that the recession was slowing after the worst slump since the 1930s Great Depression.

The president spoke after meeting a group of CEOs of what he described as the 'most innovative energy companies in America' to talk about a sector he says is vital to hauling the country out of its deepest recession in decades.

Future growth, President Obama argued, had to be built on new economic foundations - which include alternative energy - and he highlighted historic climate change legislation passed last week by the House of Representatives.

The bill, which faces a tough ride in the Senate, includes incentives for the development of alternative energy, which President Obama has made a keynote policy goal of his administration.

The Labour Department report, seen as one of the best indicators of economic momentum, reversed the improvement seen last month when job losses fell to a revised 322,000.

Since the recession began in December 2007, the world's biggest economy has lost 6.5 million jobs and the jobless rate has risen 4.6 percentage points.

Taking office in the grip of economic blight at the end of January, President Obama quickly passed a US$787 billion (S$1.1 trillion) economic stimulus bill and has presided over sweeping banking, mortgage and regulatory reform.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Thursday denied that the figures showed the stimulus plan was not working.

Senior White House officials have argued that the jobless picture would be even worse were it not for the job-creating impact of the stimulus plan. -- AFP