WASHINGTON (Reuters) - US President Barack Obama said yesterday this week’s positive job and economic growth figures proved that his big spending efforts to stimulate the economy were working.

But he cautioned in his weekly radio address to Americans that “we have a long way to go before we return to prosperity” and more job losses were likely in coming days.

Democrats and Republicans agree the economy will be the top issue for the 2010 congressional elections, although the White House has disputed suggestions that they will be a judgment on Obama and his policies.

Voting in next week’s Virginia and New Jersey governors’ races will render a first judgment on Obama, who was sworn into office just over nine months ago in the midst of the worst recession since World War Two.

The US unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at 9.8 per cent, despite a $787 billion economic stimulus that Obama and his fellow Democrats, who control Congress, pushed through in February.

New unemployment numbers due out next Friday are expected to show US employers cut 175,000 jobs in October, according to economists polled by Reuters. The unemployment rate is forecast to rise to 9.9 per cent for October.