The data published by the Statistics New Zealand revealed that the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2018 rose to 4.3% from 3.9% recorded in the previous quarter and fell short of the market expectation of 4.1%. Underlying details of the report revealed that the participation rate in the same period edged down to 70.9% from 71.1% and the labour cost index stayed unchanged on a quarterly basis to miss the analysts’ estimate of 0.6%.
With the initial market reaction, the NZD/USD pair lost more than 50 pips in a matter of minutes and was last seen trading at 0.6770, losing 1.75% on a daily basis.
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