Australia gained no less than 37.7K jobs in March, far better than a rise of 15K predicted. The unemployment rate also beat expectations with a drop to 6.1%. It was expected to stand at 6.3%, so this is quite a positive surprise. Last but not least, February’s data received a significant upwards revision. And currencies certainly reacted.
The Australian dollar made a remarkable rebound across the board, with AUD/USD hitting a high of 0.7780 and AUD/NZD escaping once again from parity. Can AUD/USD tackle 0.80 soon?
Internal data looks great
The internal data also good: 31.5K full time positions were gained. Part time jobs consisted only 6.1K jobs. In addition, we had an excellent upwards revision for previous data: February’s total job gains now stand at +42K, around triple the initial release of 15.6K.
And if you suspected that the unemployment rate was driven down by a drop in the participation rate, like in the US, we had a pleasant surprise also here. The participation rate actually rose from an upwards revised 64.7% to 64.8%. So basically more people are participating in the job market and the unemployment rate is falling.
AUD/USD action
To be fair, the pair is also rising thanks to weakness in the US dollar, originating from yet another miss seen yesterday in industrial output (which followed a miss on retail sales).
As the chart below shows, AUD/USD pierced through 0.77. It was stuck around 0.7670 before the publication and traded below 0.76 just yesterday when things looked quite bad for the currency: Chinese data we certainly worrying.
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