Too soon to end Australian stimulus, says Swan

This week's jobs data will highlight the stark contrast between the Australian and United States economies, but Treasurer Wayne Swan says it is appropriate for the Government's stimulus to continue.

The US unemployment rate jumped to 10.2 per cent in the jobs report for October, the highest level in 26 years.

The US jobless rate is nearly double that of Australia.

Swan, who attended last weekend's G20 Finance Ministers meetingin Scotland, said nobody at the gathering was doing "victory laps" and Australia was not immune from what was going on in the global economy.

"When you look at the United States economy where unemployment has hit something like 10 per cent plus, you've got the British economy which has had something like six quarterly contractions in a row ... people here are cautious," Swan told ABC Television yesterday.

A just released assessment by the International Monetary Fund was "pretty sober reading", he said.

The IMF said: "Despite recent momentum, the pace of recovery is likely to be sluggish ... a key risk is that policy support is withdrawn before the recovery can achieve self-sustaining momentum."

The federal opposition has been highly critical of the Government continuing with the stimulus, particularly when the Reserve Bank of Australia is raising interest rates.

But Swan said the central bank, which raised the official cash rate for a second time in as many months last week, was "entirely comfortable with our fiscal policy".

"People who are asserting that we should just withdraw the stimulus holus-bolus should take a cold shower."

- AAP