The Australian dollar fell sharply against all of its most-traded rivals today after employment data came out much worse than was expected. Analysts argued that the negative data bolstered the case for the Reserve Bank of Australia to lower interest rates to new record lows. Disappointing macroeconomic indicators in China, Australia’s biggest trading partner, weakened the currency further.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that the number of employed Australians dropped by 19,000 in October from September on a seasonally adjusted basis. It was the biggest drop since September 2014. The decline was a total surprise to specialists, who were counting on a significant increase by 16,200. Losses were registered in both full-time and part-time employment. The number of full-time jobs decreased by 10,300, while the number of part-time jobs fell by 8,700. On top of that, the unemployment rate increased unexpectedly from 5.2% to 5.3%. The Australian currency crashed after the release of the awful data.
On a positive side, the Melbourne Institute Survey of Consumer Inflationary and Wage Expectations increased from 3.6% to 4.0% in November. But the Aussie did not show any noticeable reaction to the report.
AUD/USD sank from 0.6837 to 0.6776 as of 15:44 GMT today. EUR/AUD jumped from 1.6092 to 1.6230. AUD/JPY tumbled from 74.40 to 73.61.
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