Sterling Reacts Positively to Employment Data

The Great Britain pound reacted positively to UK employment data released today, which showed accelerating wage inflation and a surprise drop of the unemployment rate. It allowed the currency to halt the four-day losing streak versus the euro and the Swiss franc.

According to the report from the Office for National Statistics, average weekly earnings rose 2.4% in the three-month period through March from a year ago after rising 2.3% in the previous reporting period. The unemployment rate fell from 4.7% to 4.6% unexpectedly. The number of jobless claims rose by 19,400 in April compared to the upwardly revised gain by 33,500 in March.

GBP/USD rose from 1.2913 to 1.2962 as of 12:05 GMT today. EUR/GBP was up from 0.8577 to 0.8614 intraday but backed off to trade at 0.8572 by now.

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