{"id":35715,"date":"2023-05-05T13:44:52","date_gmt":"2023-05-05T13:44:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/australia-to-predict-lower\/"},"modified":"2023-05-05T13:45:13","modified_gmt":"2023-05-05T13:45:13","slug":"australia-to-predict-lower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/australia-to-predict-lower\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia to predict lower unemployment, higher wages in looming budget"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SYDNEY (Reuters) &#8211;     Australia&#8217;s government is set to cut its forecasts for inflation while also predicting lower unemployment for longer in 2023\/24 budget next week, a mix that it hopes will generate much-needed growth in real wages. <\/p>\n<p>Treasurer Jim Chalmers will now forecast unemployment of 3.5% for the June quarter of this year and 4.25% for the same period in 2025, both a quarter point lower than in the last budget in October, according to an extract of next Tuesday&#8217;s budget seen by Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>Treasury also sees half a million new jobs being created by the middle of 2026, up from a previous forecast of 300,000.<\/p>\n<p>The budget is expected to forecast real wages growth of 0.75% over the year to June 2024, up by half a percentage point from October, with inflation seen slightly lower and nominal wages growing faster.<\/p>\n<p>That sits in contrast to the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) which on Friday lowered its forecasts for wage growth for June 2024 to 3.9%, from 4.1%, while keeping its inflation estimate at 3.6%.<\/p>\n<p>Chalmers has repeatedly stated his budget would be restrained on spending so as not to add to inflationary pressures, while also giving some targeted relief for cost of living pressures.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While low national unemployment is one of our best defences against the headwinds that are intensifying in the global economy right now, Australia will not be immune from these challenges,&#8221; says Chalmers in the budget extract.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The May Budget will be focused on targeted cost-of-living relief that doesn\u2019t add to inflation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p> (Reporting by Wayne Cole; Editing by Michael Perry)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/australia-to-predict-lower\/customers-at-a-local-cafe-are-seen-through-a-window\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportEconomy\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ440HB-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ440HB-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SYDNEY (Reuters) &#8211; Australia&#8217;s government is set to cut its forecasts for inflation while also predicting lower unemployment for longer in 2023\/24 budget next week, a mix that it hopes will generate much-needed growth in real wages. Treasurer Jim Chalmers will now forecast unemployment of 3.5% for the June quarter of this year and 4.25% [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":35716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-economy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportEconomy\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ440HB-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35717,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35715\/revisions\/35717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}