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United States' growth rate will slow down a little bit in 2005 though the general economic conditions 'look very sound', Bush's economic advisers have warned.
"US economic growth will slow to 3.5% next year, generating average monthly gains in payrolls of about 175,000," Greg Mankiw, chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, said on Friday while presenting a report prepared by the treasury and the White House Office of Management and Budget.
In its latest five-year forecast, the economic team projected gross domestic product growth will slow from 3.9% this year on a fourth-quarter to fourth-quarter basis.
The world's largest economy will grow 3.4% over the same timeframe in 2006 and 3.1% by 2009, it said.
The forecast also said non-farm payroll employment would advance by an average of 175,000 a month in 2005. In the first eleven months of 2004, the figure was 185,000. That will lift average payroll employment from 131.3 million this year to 133.4 million in a year's time.
Continued growth in hiring will boost average payrolls to 142.5 million by 2010 and depress the unemployment rate to 5.1% in 2007 from 5.4% in November, it said.