Treasurer Joe Hockey expects unemployment to rise and business investment to fall. He plans to shed 16,000 public sector jobs into a labour market that Treasury says is softening. Indeed, Treasury states that the proportion of people who are employed or looking for work will continue to fall, “reflecting the expectation that employment growth will not be strong enough to entice discouraged workers to resume their job search”. That’s Treasury code for “people will stop looking for jobs because there won’t be many to look for”.
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