Breaking: Non-Farm Payrolls misses expectations with 145K, wages only 2.9% YoY, USD falls

Yohay Elam FXStreet

The US economy has gained only 145,000 jobs in December, worse than 164,000 expected. Moreover, wages have risen by only 0.1% monthly, 2.9% yearly against 3.1% projected. Revisions draw 14,000 from previous months' job gains.

The unemployment rate remains at 3.5% with the participation rate at 63.2%, both unchanged.

The dollar is down across the board. EUR/USD has recaptured 1.11 and GBP/USD is closer to 1.31. USD/JPY is off the highs, trading around 109.50.

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Here is how it looks on the EUR/USD chart:

EURUSD after Non Farm Payrolls January 10 2020

Economists expected an increase of 164,000 jobs in the US in December, a moderate increase in comparison with the leap of 266,000 in November. Wage growth was forecast to remain steady at 3.1% yearly and rise by a monthly pace of 0.3% monthly.

Data leading to the publication mostly beat expectations with ADP's private-sector labor report printing 202,000 positions gained and the employment component of ISM's services sector survey advancing.

The US dollar has been rising throughout the week, benefiting from the upbeat economic statistics and also from safe-haven flows related to the standoff with Iran.

Author

Yohay Elam

FXStreet

Yohay is in Forex since 2008 when he founded Forex Crunch, a blog crafted in his free time that turned into a fully-fledged currency website later sold to Finixio.

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