U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday that the country's high unemployment was beginning to turn the corner on as the newly released labor report showed " encouraging" data.

"I have often had to report bad news during the course of this year," Obama said in remarks on the economy at a factory in North Carolina.

"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.

"We are beginning to turn the corner ... the worst of the storm is over."

According to the Labor Department's unemployment report released earlier Friday, the U.S. unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.7 percent in March as nonfarm payroll employment increased by 162,000, the most in three years.

Economists say that the unemployment rate, which has not risen since October 2009, could be bottoming out. Still, about 8.4 million jobs have been lost since the start of the recession in December 2007. Currently, the number of unemployed Americans remained at 15 million.

"While we have come a long way, we have still got a way to go," Obama said.

Both the Federal Reserve and Obama administration expect joblessness will remain above 9 percent through the end of this year.

Source: Xinhua