- Employment in US private sector rose more than expected in February.
- US Dollar Index clings to daily gains near 97.50 after data.
Employment Change in the US private sector was +183,000 in February following January’s increase of 209,000 (revised from 291,000), the Automatic Data Processing (ADP) reported on Wednesday. This reading came in better than the market expectation of 170K.
Commenting on the data, “COVID-19 will need to break through the job market firewall if it is to do significant damage to the economy,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. “The firewall has some cracks, but judging by the February employment gain it should be strong enough to weather most scenarios.”
USD reaction
The US Dollar Index, which tracks the USD’s performance against a basket of six major currencies, largely ignored the data and was last up 0.33% on the day at 97.47.
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