Jobless rate to rise
Mr Hogan said ANZ had raised its unemployment rate forecast to 6.5% by the end of the year and 7.5% by the middle of 2010.
Pacific Brands last month announced job losses of as many as 1850 staff as the company prepares to shift most of its remaining production to China. Holden, Lend Lease and Lonely Planet are among other companies to reveal plans to scale back output and reduce employment to cope with slumping demand.
"The job ads data is becoming bleaker by the month," Westpac economist Anthony Thompson said in a note to clients.
"We have recently revised down our employment outlook, projecting jobs growth to deteriorate from (the) current trend pace of 1% a year to -1.4% a year at the end of 2009, lifting the unemployment rate to 6.5%.
"But the evidence from our preferred leading indicators of labour demand are pointing to risks of an even bleaker outlook."
The Australian Bureau of Statistics will release unemployment figures for February on Thursday, with economists expecting the jobless rate to rise to 5% from 4.8% in January, which would be the highest since April 2006.
Analysts are predicting the economy shed 20,000 jobs last month, compared with a gain of 1200 positions in January.
The tumbling jobs data, along with weak NAB business conditions reading revealed today, paint a grim picture for the labour market this year.
The NAB business conditions index shrank to minus-20 in February, the lowest since June of 1992, when the nation was last in recession, following a minus-11 reading in January.