Australia has produced another questionable jobs report, after the unemployment rate unexpectedly jumped to its highest level in over decade during July. This time around the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicated that 121K jobs were created during August, shattering analysts’ expectations of around a 15K increase in employment. At the same, the unemployment rate dropped back to 6.1% from 6.4% and the participation rate jumped to 65.2% from 64.8%, with both sets of numbers also beating expectations.
The report is being met with scepticism in the market by analysts who are questioning the validity of a 106,700 increase in part-time employment over only a month. Nonetheless, even if the report is revised to the downside further down the track, it was still a strong month for the Australian labour market. Apart from the encouraging, but possibly overestimated, jump in the participation rate, 14.3K full-time jobs were added over the month and July’s full-time employment figure was revised higher to 15.4K (prior 14.5K).
The Aussie
The Australian dollar shot higher on the back of the report, but it has since lost some of these gains on the back of the aforementioned scepticism about the report, weak Chinese inflation data and widespread USD strength. AUDUSD is now back below 0.920 after rising as high as 0.9220 in the immediate aftermath of Australia’s August employment numbers.
Source: FOREX.com
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