Jun 6, 2008

6% Unemployment - ETS A Factor?

A number of commentators have been questioning the Reserve Bank's unemployment forecast and have been wondering why this is so much more pessimistic that Treasury's forecast as recently as in the Budget. No one seems to be figure out why the RB is thinking that things will get so bad. One factor that could be at play here is David Parker's proposed Emissions Trading Scheme. Some of the estimates done for Government are predicting close to 50,000 jobs being displaced by the scheme. Treasury has been suggesting that many of those displaced would find employment elsewhere, but were they factoring in the same economic slow down that Bollard is predicting?