Australia: GDP to contract by 3.0% – Westpac

Unemployment rate is set to reach 11% by June and the Australian economy is expected to contract by 3.5% in June, Bill Evans, a Chief Economist at Westpac Institutional Bank briefs.

Key quotes

“We estimate that there will be 814k in job losses in the June quarter lifting the unemployment rate to 11.1%.”

“Working through our GDP estimates on an industry basis and acknowledging that output is not always aligned with employment this approach points to a contraction in GDP of 3.5% in the June quarter.”

“Overall through the year, we expect GDP to contract by –3.0%, while the unemployment rate will have lifted from 5.1% to 8.8%.”