Unemployment crisis 'averted'

14 Aug 2009, 12:07 pm   -   Source: AAP
0 Comments
Share This
+ Comment
0
The RBA says the labour market has only suffered from a small decline (SBS)

The RBA says the labour market has only suffered from a small decline (SBS)

The rise in unemployment to date is lower than initially feared, Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) governor Glenn Stevens says.

RELATED

The labour market has been ‘considerably softer’ but it's not as bad as it was during the recession in the early 1990s, Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) governor Glenn Stevens says.

Mr Stevens also said the rise in the unemployment rate so far had been smaller than what was feared a few months ago.

"The labour market has seen considerably softer conditions but there has been little decline, yet, in overall employment," Mr

Stevens told the House of Representatives economics committee meeting in Sydney on Friday.

"The rise in unemployment to date looks smaller than had been feared just a few months ago.

"Several commentators have pointed out that there has been a significant fall in hours worked as there usually is in downturns.

"At this point, the fall in hours worked looks larger than what occurred in 2001, but not as large as in 1991."

Australian Bureau of Statistics data released last week showed the unemployment rate in June was 5.8 per cent, and steady from May.

But full-time employment fell by 16,000 to 7.590 million in the month and part-time employment was up 48,200 to 3.203 million.

Mr Stevens said the fall in working hours was a characteristic of the "shallow" recession Australia was experiencing.

"Compared with some earlier cycles, the reduction in hours has occurred via a reduction in working hours across more people, rather than being concentrated among a group of unemployed," Mr Stevens said.

"In fact, that is probably a reasonable characterisation of this downturn in general.

"On the basis of the information to hand at present, this may well turn out to be one of the shallower recessions Australia has experienced."

The budget papers released in May showed the federal government and department of treasury expect unemployment to peak at 8.5 per cent in 2010/11.


 

  • Follow us: 
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Youtube

Join the Discussion

Name
City / Suburb E.g. Artarmon, Sydney
Title
Comment
You have characters remaining.
Validation
What's this?
This is a captcha-picture. It is used to prevent mass-access by robots.
All submitted comments become the property of SBS. They are moderated, so we reserve the right to edit comments and remove HTML tags. Not all submitted comments will be published. Publication does not mean we endorse the opinions expressed. Please read our terms and conditions for more information.