Obama Wants Businesses, Federal Government to Hire Long-Term Unemployed

Says they're hard workers

President Barack Obama on Friday took steps to get businesses and the federal government to hire more of the long-term unemployed, part of his initiatives to get the jobless back to work.

"Just because you have been out of work for a while does not mean that you are not a hard worker," the president said at an event at the White House. "It just means you had bad luck or you were in the wrong industry or you lived in a region of the country that's catching up a little slower than others in the recovery."