Washington  - US President Barack Obama went on the road Friday hoping to tout the success of his economic recovery plan by addressing a group of police cadets in Ohio whose jobs were saved by the funding in his stimulus package.

Obama appeared in the city of Columbus, where officials are facing a 13-million-dollar budget shortfall and had informed the graduating class that they would not be able to join the police force. Their jobs were saved after the city secured 4 million dollars from the stimulus package.

Obama's speech came as the US Labour Department reported that another 651,000 jobs were slashed in February, bringing the unemployment rate up to 8.1 per cent.

"I don't need to tell this graduating class what it's like to know that your job might be next because, up until a few weeks ago, that is precisely the future that this class faced, a future that millions of Americans still face right now," Obama said.

"Well, that is not a future I accept for the United States of America," he said.

Obama pushed his 787-billion-dollar stimulus package through Congress in February. The plan is designed to create 3.5 million jobs largely through infrastructure construction projects.

Ohio is a key battleground state in the presidential election, and one Republicans would likely have to win back to defeat Obama in 2012. dpa