Economists are more divided over the likely direction of monetary policy following the Reserve Bank's decision to keep official rates on hold at its May board meeting.While most forecasters are standing by calls that the central bank will be forced to cut at least once later this year, several have broken from the consensus to argue that the expected monetary easing might not happen.Citi Australia's economics team believes the prospect of a rate cut is diminishing because unemployment is not likely to increase over the next two years.In its official statement published on Tuesday, the RBA board indicated it would be paying close attention to developments in the labour market at its upcoming meetings.That potentially implies that any rate cuts in the near-term would be contingent on rises in unemployment."Given the central outlook for an unemployment rate that is stalled at 5.0 per cent until 2021, it will probably take an increase in the unemployment rate to get looser monetary conditions," the Citi economists said in a report published last night."We don't expect any increase in our unemployment rate forecasts; instead we have 4.8 per cent at the end of the year and 4.6 per cent at the end of 2020."On this basis, the RBA wouldn't deliver cuts."Influential money market consultant Sean Keane still expects the central bank will loosen monetary policy later this year but questioned whether the board was feeling an urgent need to take such action.In a research report issued by Credit Suisse to institutional investors, Keane said the RBA might not have actively considered a rate cut at the May meeting."Like most commentators we thought that the rate decision today would be extremely close, and that an RBA easing was certainly a possibility," Keane told investors in the report."Having read the RBA press release a number of times we are far from certain that was in fact the case, and there is little in today's statement that suggests that a rate cut was actively considered."Keane told investors not to bank on any change to monetary policy at the board's June meeting, although a policy adjustment was more likely in August."We question whether the markets' expectations about the closeness of the rate decision were accurate today, and our reading is that the bank is still at least a couple of meetings away from pulling the interest rate trigger," he said in the report.