|
(CEP News) - Australia's economy is expected to lose 20,000 jobs in February, after two months of unemployment reports that surprised economists with better-than-expected results.
"Australia's labour market has surprised in the last couple of months with virtually no change in employment even as the economy has slipped into recession. At some point, it must turn downwards," IFR Markets economist George Worthington said. Worthington's forecast is in line with the consensus estimate. He expects a 0.2% rise in the unemployment rate to 5.0%. If this happens, the unemployment rate will have climbed 1.0% within a year - a sign of a recession, he said. Like many other economists, Worthington forecast a decline of thousands of jobs in January, but results showed a 1,200 increase. February has seen a lot of negative momentum in key employment components of business surveys. Indeed, the Australian Industry Group's performance of manufacturing index saw a sharp drop to 32.8 from 42.7 in the employment component in February. The AiG service sector index saw a drop to 37.9 from 45.0, and the AiG construction sector index saw a decline in the component to 31.0 from 37.3. The employment component of the National Australia Bank's business confidence report for February dropped 10 points to -27. Finally, the ANZ Bank's measure of job advertisements saw its sharpest drop ever in February, falling 10.4%. "Reports of further job cuts at large employers only add to the weakness that is likely to be exhibited by the official labour market data in the month," TD Securities economist Joshua Williamson said. He expects a loss of 25,000 jobs and a rise in the unemployment rate to 5.1% from 4.8%. He said his forecast would have been higher had he not expected the participation level in the labour market to fall. The general consensus among economists is for the participation rate to fall to 65.0% from 65.1%. By Megan Ainscow,
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
, edited by Sarah Sussman,
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
CEP Newswires - CEP News © 2009. All Rights Reserved. www.economicnews.ca The Copying, Broadcast, Republication or Redistribution of CEP News Content is Expressly Prohibited Without the Prior Written Consent of CEP News. A copy of CEP News disclaimer can be found at http://www.economicnews.ca/cepnews/wire/disclaimer. |
