IT'S THE number that dare not speak its name: 58,785.

That's the increase in the number of unemployed people the Federal Government's latest economic forecasts imply we will see by next June.

It's a simple enough figure to calculate from Treasury's budget forecasts. Yet no one in the Government will say it out loud, while the Opposition wants to pretend it is a dark secret.

Such are the blame games politicians play.

The Coalition circulated yesterday a "Layoffs under Labor" flyer listing 11,361 job cuts announced since Labor came to office. It did not mention the 136,100 jobs created since then according to official statistics.

The Opposition's deputy leader, Julie Bishop, followed up in question time by asking the Minister for Employment, Julia Gillard, how many people the Government was forecasting would lose their jobs over the next 12 months.

It was an obvious trap, so Gillard steered well clear of placing a raw number on unemployment predictions. Instead she referred to the budget forecast that the unemployment rate would reach 4.75 per cent by June 2009 (up from 4.3 per cent now).

Yet there is enough information in the budget to work out the raw number. Assuming the working age population grows at the five-year trend rate this financial year, Treasury's forecasts imply the ranks of the unemployed will swell from 481,100 at present to 539,885 next June.

Just don't mention those numbers to anyone.