The suggestion might come as a big relief to thousands of youths in countries like India, China and Philippines, where American companies have outsourced their work.
"It probably wouldn't be good for our economy for a bunch of these jobs to come back because, there's no way that people could be getting paid a living wage on some of these jobs -- at least in order to be competitive in an international setting," Obama said during the course of an online town hall meeting streamed live on the Internet from the White House.
Obama responded to online video questions in the first of its kind attempt to establish a direct line of communication with the masses.
"When can we expect jobs that have been outsourced to other countries to come back and be made available to the unemployed here in the US?" was a question posed to him.
"Not all of these jobs are going to come back... What we've got to do is create new jobs that can't be outsourced," Obama answered.
