Third, and related to the previous point, while the decline in total hours worked was smaller than we thought, it was tilted more to job losses rather than declines in average hours than expected (Graph 9; Graph 6.3 in the SMP). And more of the people who exited employment left the labour force entirely.
Meanwhile, the fiscal positions of the National Government and the entire public sector are expected to continue to improve, taking off from their performance in 2007. Finally, we expect the BOP to continue to be in surplus although at a level that is smaller compared to the previous year.