US President Barack Obama has warned it will take “many more months” for the United States to get out of recession even after the latest figures showed the economy shrank only modestly in the second quarter.

Data out last Friday showed that the world's largest economy contracted by 1% in the second quarter — better than many economists had predicted and a distinct improvement on the first quarter when it shrank 6.4%.

The combined falls make the slump the worst recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Speaking during his weekly radio address over the weekend, Mr Obama, who has defended his young administration's economic policies in recent weeks in the face of worsening unemployment numbers, said that jobless figures this week would still show that too many Americans were losing work.

“It will take many more months to fully dig ourselves out of a recession. A a recession that we've now learned was even deeper than anyone thought,” said the president.

“And when we receive our monthly job report next week, it is likely to show that we are continuing to lose far too many jobs in this country. As far as I'm concerned, we will not have a recovery as long as we keep losing jobs.”

But the US president said that a huge stimulus package approved in February had helped stave off a deep recession.

He said, “Friday's economic report revealed that, in the last few months, the economy has done measurably better than expected and many economists suggest that part of this progress is directly attributable to the $787 billion dollar economic stimulus package known as the Recovery Act.”