Obama sought to claim part of the credit for the 162,000 jobs added in March, saying that steps taken by his administration, while sometimes unpopular, "have broken this slide and are helping us to climb out of this recession."
He spoke at a factory that makes high-tech battery components just hours after the Labor Department issued its monthly jobs report.
"I've often had to report bad news during the course of this year, as the recession wreaked havoc on people's lives. But today is an encouraging day. We learned that the economy actually produced a substantial number of jobs instead of losing a substantial number of jobs," he said.
Still, the jobs report was a mixed one. Of the 162,000 new jobs in March, 48,000 were government-created Census Bureau positions. And because the new jobs weren't enough to offset increasing numbers entering the job market, the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.7 percent, where it has been stuck since January, after surging to 10.1 percent last October.
More than 40 percent of those without jobs have been unemployed for more than six months. Since the recession began in December 2007, some 8.4 million have lost their jobs.
"That's a staggering sum," Obama said. "We shouldn't underestimate the difficulties we face...We're still going through a hard time."
He spoke at the Celgard LLC factory, which received a $49 million grant from the U.S. Energy Department last August. Among other things, it makes membranes used mostly in lithium batteries.
"You're building separators to make sure diametrically opposed forces can work successfully together. And I couldn't help but think we could use your help in Congress," Obama joked. "We could get one of those tri-part films and put it between the Democrats and the Republicans. It would improve conductivity, right?"
The president said the federal stimulus grant created nearly 300 direct jobs for the company and more than 1,000 jobs for its contractors and suppliers.
Obama's team was seeking to identify itself with much-needed job creation, hoping that will help Democrats gain favor with voters after a bruising, yearlong battle with Republicans over health care. Republicans, meanwhile, are minimizing recent job creation as anemic and pointing to the high remaining level of joblessness.
"A near ten-percent unemployment rate is completely unacceptable, and no amount of taxpayer-funded temporary Census workers can mask the pummeling America's employers are taking from Washington Democrats' job-killing agenda," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in Washington that, while Friday's jobs report was encouraging, there is a long road ahead before the U.S. economy fully recovers from the downturn.
"There was not an announcement that was going to be made in any form on these numbers that would have caused us to declare that the mission had been accomplished," Gibbs told reporters Friday.
White House economist Christina Romer said that, while Friday's jobs report showed signs of a gradual economic recovery, the American labor market remains "severely distressed." Romer said Americans should expect the unemployment rate to remain volatile, and warned of bumps in the road ahead.
Republicans have created a steady drumbeat of criticism of Obama's stewardship of the economy and against his health care victory in the hopes voters blame Obama at the ballot box in November.
Obama spent about 15 minutes on Friday defending his health care overhaul in response to a question from the audience, then apologized for being so long-winded.
Between now and November, Democrats are looking to illustrate their economic accomplishments.
Taking questions from the audience, Obama was asked whether his decision earlier in the week to open the door to offshore oil and gas drilling would hurt development of so-called green energy sources. He said it wouldn't, and that there was room for both.
"We can't drill our way out of this problem," he said. Obama said a top priority for him remains improving energy efficiency and promoting clean energy.
But in the meantime, he said, the nation needs to find ways to use traditional energy sources in the "most efficient and most environmentally friendly ways."
Reversing two decades of policy, Obama earlier in the week backed lifting drilling bans off the southern Atlantic coastline, in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and in parts of Alaska.
He was also asked whether his large black presidential limousine was energy-efficient, drawing laughter from the audience.
"I apologize because the Secret Service said `no.' It's because the cars that I'm in are like tanks," Obama said.
