The US unemployment rate is unlikely to experience a sustained fall below seven per cent until 2013, according to the country's leading economic forecasters.

The Blue Chip Economic Indicators (BCEI), which polls 52 economists for their views on a monthly basis, discovered that 52 per cent of those surveyed expect the employment situation to improve slowly over the next few years.

However, respondents did raise gross domestic product (GDP) projections for 2010 by 0.2 per cent to 2.7 per cent - although this figure still falls short of the expected post-recession bounce.

The US jobless rate increased to 10.2 per cent in October, while the economy grew by an encouraging 3.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2009.

In the BCEI's November newsletter, the macroeconomic group said: "The major uncertainty surrounding growth next year involves the degree to which private demand accelerates as the positive contributions to GDP from reduced business inventory liquidation and fiscal stimulus play out."

Earlier this month, Automatic Data Processing published its National Employment Report, which revealed that the rate of job losses witnessed in the US private sector slowed in October.