The most important economic event scheduled for this week is the Labour Force report that is being compiled and released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The Unemployment rate in Australia increased by 0.1 percentage points in August to 5.3 per cent, which was the first recorded hike in five months.
It is for that reason that the importance of Thursday’s labour market data is going to be further amplified as investors would be keen to see if last month’s poor performance was a one-off occurrence or if it was the beginning of a new trend of deteriorating employment conditions.
The consensus forecasts for the September data are somewhat muted. Most market analysts agree that the unemployment rate is likely to remain unchanged at 5.3 per cent, whereas the labour market is expected to have increased marginally by only 15.3 thousand new jobs.
In comparison, the Australian economy has added 34.7 thousand new jobs in August. Nevertheless, there are reasons for optimism.
The unemployment rates in the US and Canada both decreased by 0.2 percentage points in September, which is owing to the impact of market seasonality and workers returning to the labour market from their summer holidays (you can read more about the impact of market seasonality here)
The impact of market seasonality is likely to be less noticeable in Australia, as the weather there differs from the seasonal patterns in the Northern hemisphere.
Still, owing to the interconnectedness of the global economy oftentimes, there is a spillover effect, which means that Australia is likely to benefit from the strong performance in the American and Canadian labour markets.
Meanwhile, the price of the AUDUSD appears to be consolidating as the pair builds on bullish momentum.
The price is currently trading in a tight Accumulation range between 0.68000 and 0.67000, and is evidently forming a support level at the midpoint level.