Breaking: Australia April unemployment rate +6.2 pct, s/adj (Reuters poll: +8.3)

The Aussie payrolls data had been indicating that around 1 million had already been rendered inactive. Today's official employment and unemployment statistics have been held in high anticipation and the data has finally arrived as follows: 

Australian jobs data

• Australia April employment -594.3k s/adj (Reuters poll: -575.0k) - Bearish.
• Australia April unemployment rate +6.2 pct, s/adj (Reuters poll: +8.3) – Less bearish. 
• Australia April full-time employment -220.5k s/adj vs 6.4K prir. - Bearish.
• Australia April participation rate +63.5 pct, s/adj (Reuters poll: +65.2 pct) Bearish.

ABS says

• ABS says underemployment rate rose 4.9 pts to 13.7% in April.
• ABS says monthly hours worked in all jobs decreased 163.9 million hours to 1,625.8 million hours.
• ABS says around 489,800 people left the labour force, limiting rise in unemployment.
• ABS says unemployment increased by 104,500 people to 823,300.
• ABS says unusual number of employed and unemployed people leaving the labour force resulted in an unprecedented fall in the participation rate.
• ABS says was a high number of people without a job who didn’t or couldn’t actively look for work or weren’t available for work.
• ABS says around 2.7 million people either left employment or had their hours reduced between March and April.

FULL REPORT

AUD reaction 

AUD has been mixed on the data with something for both the bears and bulls (Unemployment rate not as bad as expected). In some time after the event, enough fr traders to digest the abnormalities in the report, AUD has taken a decisively bearish path, falling some 26 pips.

Prior to the data, in European and US trade, AUD/USD fell from 0.6480 to end the day around 0.6450 via 0.6524 the low.  The pair sat at 0.6456 ahead of the release. AUD/NZD had been preserving its post-RBNZ gains, touching a six-month high before the event. (AUD/NZD extending the RBNZ RBA playoff-rally before key data). AUD/JPY had been playing out its risk correlating status and trading under pressure: AUD/JPY struggles around 0.69 the figure, bears in control.

COVID-19 second wave fears and trade wars are an inevitable weight for the currency to bear. More on that here China reports 12 new asymptomatic coronavirus cases and AUD/USD falls towards the bottom of the week's range, bearish bias prevails.

Description of The Unemployment Rate

The Unemployment Rate released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics is the number of unemployed workers divided by the total civilian labour force. If the rate hikes, this indicates a lack of expansion within the Australian labour market. As a result, a rise leads to weaken the Australian economy. A decrease of the figure is seen as positive (or bullish) for the AUD, while an increase is seen as negative (or bearish).