Obama warns on job losses, urges export boost

By Alister Bull and Glenn Somerville

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama warned on Monday that more U.S. job losses lay ahead despite a turnaround in the economy, and he called for a new "post bubble growth model" with greater focus on U.S. exports.

"If Germany, a wealthy, highly unionized industrial nation, can generate 40 percent of its economy as export-based, then it seems to me that there is something we're missing that they are doing right, and we have got to figure that out," he told a meeting of his Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet Obama at the White House on Tuesday.

A sharp rebound in U.S. growth between July and September ended the worst economic slump in 70 years, but unemployment has jumped to 9.8 percent and is seen going higher.

"We anticipate that we are going to continue to see some job losses in the weeks and months to come," Obama told the advisory board in a meeting shown on the White House website.

"There is a -- always a lag of several months between businesses starting to make profits again and investing again, and then actually rehiring again," he said.

Obama said the economy was beginning to stabilize, but cautioned that it still had a long way to go and that policymakers need to find new models for future growth.

"Are there mechanisms that we can start putting in place where we see the kind of growth that used to characterize the U.S. economy -- export-driven growth, manufacturing growth," he demanded of the panel, which included business leaders as well as former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.