Australian unemployment hits 6% – AUD/USD loses 0.90

The jobs data released by Australia for the month of January were significantly worse than expected, no matter how we look at them. Not only did the unemployment rate hit 6%, but it also came on top of a lower than expected participation rate.

The Australian dollar reacted accordingly and lost the 0.90 line that was captured with a lot of effort.

Australia lost 3.7K  jobs in January, significantly weaker than a gain of 15.3K that was expected. December’s big job loss was revised to an even worse loss: from 22.6K to 23K.

The unemployment rate was predicted to move up from 5.8% to 5.9%, but it made it to the round number of 6%. The participation rate is now 64.5%, and it was expected to be 0.1% higher.

Also in the division between full time and part time employment, the picture isn’t positive: 7.1K full time jobs were lost while 3.4K were gained. Also in December, gains in part time jobs partly compensated for a big loss of full time jobs.

AUD/USD

Here is how it looks on the chart:

The Australian dollar was already sliding from the highs of 0.9070 towards the publication and stood at around 0.9030. The big disappointment sent it around 100 pips lower to 0.8926, and at the time of writing it has stabilized at around 0.8950.

Support awaits the pair at around 0.8910, followed by 0.8820. Resistance is at the obvious line of 0.90. For more events and analysis, see the AUD to USD forecast.