The US Bureau of Labour Statistics reported a total of 196 000 new non-farm payrolls that were added to the economy, which beat the initial forecasts of 172 000. However, despite these positive numbers the average hourly earnings fell to 0.1% and did not meet the initial forecasts of 0.3%. Furthermore, the data continues to worsen when compared against 0.4% for March and is raising some serious concerns.
The main issue is that the decreasing hourly earnings can have a detrimental long-term effect on the inflation rate, which is already below the targeted 2%. The FED faces a tough time ahead of itself, as it will have to reverse this process of falling average earnings if it still wants to improve the consumer price index and meet the inflation rate target. Otherwise, the US economy faces a serious threat from even more sluggish economic growth for the next quarter.
On the other hand, the Canadian economy's unemployment rate remained at 5.8% despite losing 7 000 jobs for the month of March.
The USDCAD was affected by the mixed data from the two economies as the currency pair's initial reaction was to collapse with more than 30 pips in less than a minute, however, the price corrected itself because of the better than expected NFP reported. After the initial volatility settled down, the USD resumed its depreciation because of the investor concerns connected to the worsening wage climate.