The Australian dollar may have dropped four US cents in a just 10 days but it's going to take more than that to spur business investment, Reserve Bank assistant governor Christopher Kent says.
The local currency is currently worth just under 90 US cents, weighed down by the surging US dollar.
Any decline in the currency provides net stimulus to the economy, But there is no trigger point which would help businesses start investing more, Dr Kent told a Bloomberg economic summit in Sydney.
"The one thing we have to recognise is they're not going to react at a particular exchange rate," Dr Kent said.
"If they need a slightly lower exchange rate to support that investment, they're going to need to see that lower for quite a while, I suspect, before they take on major works."
The RBA has repeatedly expressed concern about the high Australian dollar, which it says is offering less assistance than would usually be expected in achieving balanced growth in the economy.
At the bank's September board meeting, members noted the Australian dollar "remained above most estimates of its fundamental value, particularly given the declines in key commodity prices".
Dr Kent said it was hard to know where the exchange rate should be.
"The thing to recognise is that the world is changing all the time," he said.
"It's a moving feast, it's hard to know, I wouldn't pick a number."
Dr Kent also addressed the recent volatility in official jobs numbers, saying the RBA treated all economic data with skepticism.
The unemployment rate shot to a 12-year high of 6.4 per cent in July, before dropping back to 6.1 per cent in August due to a record number of jobs being added to the economy.
"You can't read too much into any particular series in any given month," Dr Kent said.
"Obviously, what happened with the unemployment rate over the last couple of months was rather exceptional, those were very large movements.
"It does make reading of the labour market difficult but that's often the case, and you have to marry looking at any particular series, like unemployment, with a whole range of other data."
Dr Kent said labour market conditions remained subdued but there had been signs of stabilisation.
"Forward looking indicators, like job ads, vacancies, business surveys, our own liaison, suggest things are better on the employment front than they have been but not necessarily strong enough to soak up pretty strong growth in the labour force," he said.
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