Billionaire retailer Gerry Harvey has provided a voice of hope in the wilderness of doom and gloom, amid the record interest rate rises of the past month.

The Harvey Norman chairman reckons the Australian economy is in good shape, with record low unemployment, and consumers should be able to cope with the surprise jump in rates this week.

“We’ve got the lowest interest rates in a century, now they’re going up from next to nothing… they’ve never been this low, and then I talk to people who paid off their house under those circumstances – not many by the way, but we all survived,” he told Liam Bartlett on 6PR Mornings.

“Now we’re panicking… the reality is we can’t get people to work for you at the moment. There are 400,000 vacancies out there in the Australian economy and no one to fill them.”

Tap PLAY to hear Gerry Harvey’s views on the current economic climate