Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

and, yes, Senator Macdonald, underemployment is an important issue in every country. The current forecast is for OECD-wide unemployment rates to reach 9.9 per cent by 2010. For Australia over the same period, the OECD forecast is 7.7 per cent. And as we know, it is currently 5.8 per cent. There remains a massive challenge as unemployment continues to rise here and around the world. As I have said on a number of occasions, even though Australia is the only advanced economy not to have gone into recession, with 0.6 per cent growth, that in itself is not sufficient to maintain jobs and prevent unemployment. (Time expired)