Glenn Stevens doesn't believe the economic circumstances that have resulted in a 12-year high unemployment rate will persist forever.
But the Reserve Bank governor is "quite concerned" about the recent spike in the jobless rate to 6.4 per cent.
During the second of his twice-yearly appearances before the House of Representatives economics committee on Wednesday, Mr Stevens said it was hard to imagine that the "animal spirits" of business never recover, non-mining investment stays weak indefinitely and the exchange rate stays high.
"I would put that at a very low likelihood," he told public hearings in Brisbane.
Asked if this proved the case for an unemployment rate of seven per cent, Mr Stevens replied: "It would always be possible to construct a scenario that will deliver you that rate or even higher if you want to do so."
As it is, he is quite concerned that the unemployment rate is higher, although from a historical perspective he said it wasn't that many years ago that six-point-something was regarded as low.
However, there has been some improvement in employment growth this year and some leading indicators had turned up.
"You wouldn't call them strong but they seem ... (to be) getting better," Mr Stevens said.
New Department of Employment data on Wednesday showed that job advertising on the internet rose by a further 0.6 per cent in July to be 10 per cent higher than a year earlier.
Mr Stevens expects economic growth will probably be below its long-term trend of 3.25 per cent in the near term, a disappointing result given the cash rate has been at a 50-year low of 2.5 per cent per cent for a year.
He hosed down speculation the RBA had recently considered an interest rate rise, saying the bank's board saw some value in maintaining a "sense of steadiness and stability".
Inflation should be consistent with the bank's preferred two-to-three per-cent-target band, with the Abbott government's removal of the carbon tax temporarily easing price pressures.
But that did not mean there would be implications for interest rates if carbon pricing was re-introduced.
RBC Capital Markets head of strategy Su-Lin Ong said the key message from the hearing was one of patience.
Federal Labor has said it will pursue an emissions trading scheme when it is returned to government.
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