Obama says more layoffs on the way

The US president asks Americans to brace for a "difficult time", warning that the country will face a greater hemorrhage of jobs in 2009.

"We're going to have to be patient and persistent about job creation because I don't think that we've lost all the jobs that we're going to lose in this recession," President Barack Obama said Thursday at an event that aimed to respond to questions posed on the White House website.

"We're still going to be in a difficult time for much of this year."

Obama nevertheless pledged to create some 3.5 million jobs in two years according to a promise he and his economic team made when they presented their hefty $787 billion stimulus plan.

Now with his electoral glow fading, Obama is faced with concrete realities, almost all of which relate to the US economy that is in a free fall.

When the President was confronted with the fact that 1 in 50 children in America are homeless, he responded by saying, "I'm heartbroken that any child in America is homeless and the most important thing I can do is make sure their parents have a job."