Iran Press/ Asia: Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Governor Philip Lowe said in a speech in Sydney on Tuesday that the country's national output would fall by around 10% in the first half of 2020, with most of this decline taking place in the June quarter, Reuters reported.
"Unemployment is likely to be around 10% by June as total hours worked are likely to decline by around 20%," he said, added: "The jobless rate was 5.2% in March."
"These are all very large numbers and ones that were inconceivable just a few months ago. They speak to the immense challenge faced by our society to contain the virus," Lowe said in a speech in Sydney.
Earlier, figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed jobs recorded by the tax office payroll system fell 6% between March 14 and April 4, suggesting about 780,000 job losses.
The number of Coronavirus infections in Australia is relatively small with the rate of growth slowing significantly in recent days.
However, the outbreak has spread rapidly from less than 100 cases in March to more than 6,600 now, prompting the government to shut non-essential businesses, ban overseas travel and large gatherings while enforcing social distancing rules.
Lowe said the economic recovery would be slow when these restrictions are eased.
"Whatever the timing of the recovery, when it does come, we should not be expecting that we will return quickly to business as usual," Lowe said in a speech broadcast live on the RBA's website.
"Rather, the twin health and economic emergencies that we are experiencing now will cast a shadow over our economy for some time to come," he said.
Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison claimed recently that around 80 percent of the country's Coronavirus cases came from those who caught disease overseas or were in contact with someone who returned from abroad.
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