The Great Britain pound was flat versus the US dollar and the euro while falling versus the Japanese yen today following the release of mixed employment data from the United Kingdom.
The number of claims for unemployment benefits fell by 4,300 in December to the lowest level since March 2008. The unemployment rate unexpectedly slipped by 0.1 percentage point to 5.1 percent in the period from September to November — the lowest since January 2006. A somewhat negative part of the report came in the form of average weekly earnings that grew 2.0 percent during the three months to November from the same period a year ago. While being not a bad reading by itself, it was a little below the forecast figure of 2.1 percent.
Yesterday, Mark Carney, Bank of England Governor, cooled interest rate hike expectations, saying in his speech that “now is not yet the time to raise interest rates.” The comment hurt pound pretty badly, and it might be one of the reasons why the sterling is not rising today despite the relatively good employment report.
GBP/USD opened at 1.4156 and rallied to 1.4190 intraday but backed off and traded close to its opening level as of 12:20 GMT today. EUR/GBP was up from 0.7704 to 0.7755 (the highest since January 14, 2015) but trades close to the opening currently. GBP/JPY slid from 166.49 to 165.15, and its daily low of 164.04 was the lowest since February 2014.
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