Employment Outlook 2009 Country Notes: Australia
This is due to both the relatively large size of the fiscal package (5.4% of 2008 GDP, third largest after Korea and the United States among OECD countries) and the degree to which employment responds to fiscal stimuli such as tax cuts or public expenditure; this is typically higher in countries, like Australia, where a relatively large proportion of domestic demand is met by local production. As a result, employment is projected to fall only slightly from its 2008 peak.
While Australia may have avoided the worst of the global recession, unemployment has risen steadily since early 2008. Internationally-comparable data from the OECD show that Australia’s unemployment rate has risen from 3.9% in the February 2008 to 5.8% in July 2009, an increase of around 40% and the highest rate in almost six years. Nevertheless, it remains well below the OECD average of 8.3%.
Long abstract
