The Coalition's argument that a carbon tax would lay waste to Australian jobs may be in tatters after an Australia Institute report found the losses would be "so trivial as to be invisible".

In the report, ANU Professor Bruce Chapman took the Minerals Council's prediction that a carbon tax would cost the mining industry 24,000 jobs over 10 years and compared it to the number of people who simply change jobs each month.

Professor Chapman, the president of the Economics Society of Australia, says the job losses are barely a drop in the ocean when they are put in context.

"The loss of 23,000 jobs over a 10-year period is actually a very, very small number, particularly in a sector that is growing as quickly as mining will be," he said.

"Often people think about job losses as if it comes about with people being sacked and then having long periods of unemployment. In some cases that is true ... but that is not going to be the case here.

"This is going to be a relatively, in fact, a very tiny number indeed compared to the overall amount of flows in the economy."

Professor Chapman says on his analysis of the figures, in every working hour of every day, about 1,550 people will find a new job while about 1,530 people will leave their old job.

They are figures that dwarf the purported job losses in mining.

"Most of the people we have found who leave jobs actually don't go to unemployment," he said.

"For example, we found that for the people in mining employment in 2001, of the 30 per cent or so that left mining employment, one year later none were unemployed. In fact, they all went to alternative employment."

Professor Chapman says where the economy is suffering skills shortages, miners will be quick to find work elsewhere.

"The labour market is not static at all. It is hugely mobile, and while we should be looking after people who are experiencing bad experiences of long-term unemployment, when the flows are like this... you really won't be able to see [the effect] in the data," he said.

"They are missing the point of how dynamic the labour market really is."

Not insignificant

But the Coalition is calling on the Federal Government to distance itself from Professor Chapman's analysis.

Opposition climate spokesman Greg Hunt disagrees the job losses will be insignificant.

"My view, and our view, is that 23,500 jobs for blue collar workers matter, and they matter an extraordinary amount," he said.

"If the Prime Minister agrees that 23,500 jobs don't matter, this is her chance to say so today."

A spokesman for Climate Change Minister Greg Combet says the Opposition's claims about the impact of a carbon price on jobs have been greatly exaggerated.

He says the Government takes jobs growth seriously, which is why it will provide assistance to hard-hit industries.

Treasurer Wayne Swan, meanwhile, says Treasury modelling shows a carbon price will see gas-fired electricity generation expand by between 150 and 300 per cent by 2050.

Mr Swan said a carbon price would also see a very significant shift to renewable electricity.

He did not reveal, however, what carbon price Treasury used in its modelling.