'4.4 mn jobs lost, long way before economy revives'

As the latest statistics revealed that an astounding 4.4 million people lost jobs in the US since December 2007, the White House has warned that there is a long way to go before the economy gets moving.

"Obviously, this is one more piece of evidence to demonstrate how deep of a recession we're in," White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said.

"As the President (Barack Obama) has often said that it's going to get worse before it gets better. We've now lost two million jobs in just the last three months," he said.

Obama, during a meeting in Ohio, had said that 651,000 jobs were lost throughout US in February alone, which brings the total number of jobs lost in the recession to 4.4 million, more than half of which have been in the last three months.

He was in the city of Columbus addressing a graduation ceremony of police officers, who would have been fired if he had not come out with his economic stimulus plan.

"These are cops that weren't going to be hired, that are now, because of stimulus money that the city is getting, able to -- instead of laying off the Police Academy force before they get their badges, put them on the street and keep the community safe," Gibbs told reporters travelling with the President on Air Force One.

"But there's no doubt that we have a long way to go to get this economy moving again, and the jobs numbers are one more reminder of that," he said.