Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced she is confident of an imminent rate cut to offset the lowest job growth figures since the early 90’s.

 

In an interview with Sky News, Ms Gillard expressed her confidence in the economy while saying she believed there is room for future rate cuts.

 

"Our economy is growing. We have room to move on monetary policy - obviously that is in the province of the Reserve Bank," Ms Gillard told Sky News.

 

“We are an economy with strong fundamentals, we've got growth, we've got low unemployment. Look around the world we're talking about unemployment just over five per cent. In the euro zone they're talking about it at 10 per cent, the Americans more than eight per cent,” Ms Gillard said. 

 

Ms Gillard’s comments come after the ABS reported the number of people employed decreased by 29,300 to 11,421,300 in December. The decrease in employment was driven by a drop in part-time employment, down 53,700 people to 3,370,300, and was offset by an increase in full-time employment, up 24,500 people to 8,051,000