Obama to seek expert advice on how to revive US economy

US President-elect Barack Obama was to meet his economic advisers on Friday, his first since Tuesday’s historic election.

The meeting comes as new US jobless figures underlined the enormity of the task confronting him to stabilise an economy that is shedding jobs fast.

Job losses in October were worse than feared, with employers cutting payrolls by 240,000, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate shot up to 6.5 per cent from 6.1 per cent in September, its highest since 1994.

After two days in which Wall Street has plunged around 10 per cent since Tuesday’s election, Obama sought to hear from economists, businessmen and policy experts on how to deal with the worst US financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Obama, who won a sweeping victory in part because of his economic promises, has assembled a 17-member transition economic advisory board. He must now decide who to put on his White House team and how to implement promised measures.

The board includes former Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, former Labor secretary Robert Reich, Google Inc chairman Eric Schmidt, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and billionaire Warren Buffett.

Meanwhile, Obama said he would not make any announcements on Friday about members of his new administration, an aide said.

“There will be no personnel announcements today,” his aide Stephanie Cutter told reporters.

After the meeting, Obama was to face the news media for the first time since the election, which will make him the first black American president when he is inaugurated on January 20.

Obama has acknowledged the urgency of revitalising the economy and he is expected to quickly make key appointments to his economic team.

The market is looking closely at who Obama will name as Treasury Secretary. Top candidates for the job included Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Summers and Volcker.

A Reuters poll of economists found 26 of 48 respondents thought Geithner would be chosen for the job, while Summers came second with 14 votes.

Whoever takes the Treasury job will guide the $700 billion economic bailout package and the regulatory reform needed to prevent a repeat of the current crisis.

Obama and his economic advisers will likely talk about the $700 billion package and also about a possible second fiscal stimulus package the Democratic-run Congress is expected to address when it returns to Washington.