Unemployment tipped to hit four year high THE unemployment rate is expected to have hit a four year high in August as businesses held off on hiring until after the federal election. Official labour force figures are to be released on Thursday morning, and the median forecast from an AAP survey of 11 economists is for the unemployment rate to rise to 5.8 per cent, from 5.7 per cent in July. Unemployment hasn't been that high since August 2009. The number of people with jobs is expected to have risen by 10,000 in August, compared to a fall of 10,200 in July. But JP Morgan Australia chief economist Stephen Walters said jobs growth of 10,000 a month is not enough to absorb the increase in population and keep the unemployment rate from rising. "It is possible that firms held back hiring decisions close to the federal election, which would depress the August numbers," he said. It is difficult to disentangle the impact of an election from the prevailing macro backdrop of the time, but there is circumstantial evidence of a pre-election hiring stall in one recent case. Mr Walters there was a similar pattern ahead of the November 2007 election, when Labor's Kevin Rudd defeated the then prime minister John Howard. The participation rate - the percentage of the working-age population either in work or looking for a job - is expected to rise to 65.2 per cent in August, from 65.1 per cent in July.