The US economic stimulus programme has directly created or saved 640,000 jobs so far, the White House said on Friday as it battled to find ways to show that its $787bn package was working, despite persistently high unemployment.

Data this week showed that the US economy had started to grow again but the Obama administration has faced rising criticism that it wasted taxpayers' money on the stimulus.

The White House tried to counter this by championing the jobs figures and even uploading videos to its website showing the dollars in action. The figures showed around half of the jobs were in education and 12.5 per cent were in construction.

"These reports are strong confirmation that…we are on-track to create and save 3.5m jobs through the Recovery Act by the end of next year," said Joe Biden, vice president.

However, other data on Friday showed consumer spending sagged last month after four months of increases, highlighting the precariousness of the recovery. Next week, economists expect monthly jobs figures to show that the economy shed another 175,000 jobs in October, pushing the unemployment rate to 9.9 per cent.

The estimates of the jobs created or saved through the stimulus come from direct recipients of the programme such as state and local governments, universities, private companies and community organisations.

But criticism has mounted this week over the accuracy of some preliminary stimulus data released by the White House. Even the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think-tank which has fervently supported the stimulus, said there were serious problems with the figures.

The US data came as the Bank of Japan joined other central banks in taking a step towards phasing out emergency measures aimed at tackling the impact of the financial crisis, saying it would stop buying ­corporate bonds and commercial paper at the end of the year.

The central bank's move to end its purchases of corporate debt came as government data showed the Japanese economy continued to recover gradually, with unemployment improving unexpectedly for a second month running.

The jobless rate fell to 5.3 per cent in September, from 5.5 per cent in August and a record 5.7 per cent in July, indicating that an improvement in exports and production is filtering through to employment.

Additional reporting by Michiyo Nakamato in Tokyo