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Talking Points:

• Australian Dollar fell, then trimmed some of its losses, after a worse-than-expected jobs report

• Australia lost 6.4k positions against an +16.0k estimate, unemployment ticked higher to 5.9%

• Despite the disappointment, the RBA is unlikely to change course over a salty piece of data

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The Australian Dollar declined against its major counterparts, though trimmed some of its losses shortly afterwards, following a worse than expected employment report. In February, Australia ended up losing 6,400 positions against an expectation that the nation would gain 16,000. This was also the first time the country saw a net contraction in jobs since September 2016. Last month, the nation added 13,700 employees (revised higher from 13,500).

The bulk of the losses can be found from the part-time sector which lost 33.5k employees. On a positive note, the full-time sector gained 27.1k positions. Looking at the unemployment rate, it ticked up to 5.9 percent against expectations of it holding steady at 5.7 percent. This was the highest unemployment rate since January 2016. All the while, the participation rate stayed unchanged as expected at 64.6%.

The Reserve Bank of Australia is unlikely to adjust its monetary policy stance on a single piece of salty data. Just last week, the central bank maintained rates at a record low and the view that current policy will deliver sustainable growth and a return to the inflation target overtime. However, they may bring up a thing or two about the jobs report during April’s interest rate decision.

Chart compiled in Tradingview

original source

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