US president-elect Barack Obama vowed on Friday at a Midwestern factory that he will take dramatic action to revive the devastated economy.

"It's not too late to change course -- but only if we take dramatic action as soon as possible," Obama said in a speech at the Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Co. in Cleveland suburb.

"The first job of my administration is to put people back to work and get our economy moving again," said Obama, who will take the oath of office on January 20 as the US 44th president.

"The need for us to act is now. It's never been more urgent," he said, warning that "Recovery won't happen overnight, and it's likely that, even with these measures, things will get worse before they get better."

The US economy, stuck by the current financial crisis, has been in a recession since December 2007. Many economists believe the current downtown will be the most severe since the Great Depression.

Economists polled by Reuters expected the economy to contract at an annualized 4.3 percent in the last three months of the year, and to continue to shrink through the first six months of 2009.

(Xinhua News Agency January 17, 2009)