Numbers manI just reckon its funny that most economists now...

Numbers man

I just reckon its funny that most economists now expect unemployment to be 6.5% or under (see below)

Whereas three months ago, they were all expecting unemployment to get to 8-8.5%

Its like instead of predicting snow and hail tomorrow, theyve now changed the forecast to hot and humid.

They serve no purpose in society except their own purpose and that is to inflate their massive egos. They think we look up to them as the beacon of knowledge within the financial markets when in fact it is quite the opposite, we are very much looking down onto them.



http://money.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=860346

The rate of unemployment has remained unchanged at 5.8 percent, despite 30,000 full-time jobs vanishing in July, according to official figures.

Around 27,000 Australian jobs were lost last month, and only 2,000 people gained employment, latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows.

However, the rate of employment remained constant thanks to new entrants joining the workforce, a spokesman for ABS said, prompting economists to scale back their gloomy predictions further.

Savanth Sebastian, an economist at CommSec, said the job losses reflected a seasonal, monthly shift.

"It’s important to look at the trend [which has stayed constant] the losses are more an indication of a flexible workforce moving between full time and part time jobs."

Full-time jobs were down 30,800 to 7.5 million, while part-time workers increased by almost 4,000 to over 3 million.

But the rate of participation - the number of people actively working or looking for work – remained virtually unchanged, down from 65.3 percent in July to 65.1 percent last month.

Economists had expected the jobless rate to slip to 5.9 percent.

Deputy prime minister Julia Gillard said the figures showed that Australia is weathering the economic crisis well.

Mr Sebastian said the rate – which remains unchanged at 5.8 percent for the third consecutive month – shows that the job market is "not far off from a turnaround".

While the government has not sought to alter its official forecast of unemployment peaking at 8.5 percent by the end of 2010, most economists now expect a peak of around 6.5 percent or less.

The ABS job figures out today are a lagging indicator, pointing to last month’s job market, Mr Savanth said.

"But ANZ’s job ad data earlier this week showed that that market has turned a corner for the first time," he pointed out.

Earlier this week, ANZ said the Australian job market was poised for a recovery, after revealing that the number of job advertisements has climbed for the first time in five months.

Jobs ads in newspapers and online rose by 4.1 percent in August - the first monthly rise since April and the strongest rate of growth since December 2007.

Although total job ads are still wallowing in the mire - down 48 percent on the previous year - today’s data indicates the market may have bottomed out, ANZ’s head of Australian economics, Warren Hogan said.

Meanwhile, today’s data came as Westpac revealed that Australians continue to shrug off the gloom in the job market, pinning their hopes on a recovery as early as April.

Westpac's monthly survey of unemployment expectations revealed that Australian’s outlook on the job losses has improved for the seventh consecutive month.

Westpac senior economist Anthony Thompson said a recovery as early as April may be overdone.

"There will be a gradual recovery in the market," he told ninemsn. "Just as employers have been reducing their staff’s hours in the downturn, they will start increasing the hours worked by their existing staff before they start hiring new staff, as conditions improve."

On this basis, Mr Thompson said he did not expect the job market to enter positive territory until the fourth quarter next year.