Opposition warns against unemployment figure complacency

The Federal Opposition says it remains concerned about future job losses in Australia, despite official figures showing unemployment dropped in June.

The national unemployment rate dropped slightly to 4.2 per cent, with falls across most states and territories.

Official figures show jobs surged by 30,000 last month which is almost three times the broad forecast of economists.

There had been expectations that the labour market would not be so resilient to the sharp falls in consumer confidence and home loan demand that were revealed yesterday.

Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop says the figures are encouraging, but should not lead to complacency.

"I am concerned about future employment conditions due to the government's budget forecast of 134,000 job losses within the next 12 months," Ms Bishop said.

"A combination of that budget forecast and the fact that unemployment has risen since February means we can not be complacent."

ABN Amro's Chief Economist Kieran Davies says the effects of the collapsing consumer will eventually cause employment to fall more sharply.

"We've seen economic weakness but it just might take a bit of time to flow through to the jobs market," he said.

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Thu 10th July 2008 - 08:13pm