Jobless rate tipped to rise

The majority of economists are predicting a loss of 10,000 jobs in September, which will take the unemployment rate from 5.8 per cent in August to 6 per cent.

The unemployment rate has been unchanged for three months in a row, but a rise today would put it at its highest level in about six years.

ANZ senior economist Julie Toth says she predicts it will continue to increase over the next 12 months and peak at 6.75 per cent at the end of next year.

"We're actually still looking at unemployment drifting up to about 6.75 per cent by the end of next year," she said.

"That's opposed to 7.25 and 7.5 per cent that we were thinking it might reach when we were looking at it from late last year."

The Reserve Bank declared this week that the risk of a recession has passed and measures of confidence have recovered.

But Ms Toth says it will take some time and strong jobs growth to bring unemployment down.

"We need jobs growth of around 0.5 per cent per quarter and above to really bring the unemployment rate down again," she said.

"The labour market does take quite a long time to catch up with other indicators across the economy.

"So even though profits and activity and production are turning up, we are still expecting to see the unemployment rate drift up from here, because it does take quite a while for that growth to filter through into the labour market."