Headline unemployment surprisingly rose in Australia in February, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported yesterday.
The consensus forecasts projected a marginal increase to 5.2 per cent to be revised upwards from the 5.1 per cent that was recorded in the previous month. Instead, the overall unemployment rate was recorded at 5.3 per cent, thereby reaching the mid-term peak.
The findings of this month’s labour force survey are even more surprising given the positive improvement in the aggregate employment. A total of 13.5 thousand people have been employed during the previous period vs 10.0 thousand expected.
These mostly negative results have underpinned the continuation of the current sell-off of the Australian dollar. Because of the dependence of the Australian economy on China, the Aussie has been strained considerably over the past several months.
The AUDUSD pair is now trading so low that is nearing levels that were last reached in the wake of the 2008 credit crunch.
Nevertheless, the pair looks set to close this week’s trading session on a positive note. The price has rebounded marginally in the last several hours and is currently trading around 0.66373.
Even so, the prevailing market sentiment and the current momentum in the price action are ostensibly bearish.