Growth of part time work boosts Aussie employment

Today's Highlights

• UK employment best in 11 years

• Growth of part time work boosts Aussie employment

• NZ consumer confidence slips

Current Market Overview

The UK employment scene is the most positive it has been since July 2005 and yet wage growth is still subdued, at just 1.4% in the year to December. Low inflation does dampen wage rises and a lot of the jobs created were in part time roles, so that'll have an impact. However, a 4.8% unemployment rate looks amazing on comparison with the Eurozone's 10% and the high levels elsewhere and this kind of level is considered full employment or as full as can be achieved. Sterling had an OK day, but didn't advance as you might have expected. The lack of UK data today means Sterling will tread water.

We heard overnight that Australian employment improved with a drop in the unemployment rate from 5.8% to 5.7%. However, as with the UK data, there is a swing to part time roles and, in fact, all of January's job growth came from part time roles. The Aussie Dollar, like the Pound, shrugged off the data.

New Zealand's consumer confidence level slipped a little this month. The snappily titled ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Index decreased to 127.4 in February from 128.7 in January, but that is still in positive territory. The NZ Dollar managed a slight improvement on the news. Tonight's NZ business confidence index is also expected to have slipped a tad but to have remained in the growth zone.

In Europe, the European Central Bank (ECB) will release the minutes from their last meeting today, but their statement following the meeting will have let all of the cats out of the bag already. More concerning for the Euro is the state of play on the Greek debt arrangements and anything that comes from the French election campaigning.

Aside from the ECB minutes, the data diary is a little lacklustre today, but we will see US House Starts and Building Permits data later and that is all forecast to be positive.

In other news, Donald Trump has set yet another cat amongst another set of pigeons with his lukewarm comments regarding the US's long standing demand for a ‘two-nation' approach to the Israel/Palestine conflict.

And a Russian Yoga master has been arrested under laws that try to control terrorists. The philosophy of Yoga is, it seems, worthy of consideration as a non-traditional religion and therefore banned. So, I'm guessing it is not advisable to joke about being a Jedi Knight in Russia – and I wonder if origami is similarly frowned upon?