The Australian unemployment rate rose in January to 3.7%, according to figures issued by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) at the beginning of the Asian session today, Thursday, while expectations were that it would remain stable when reading December at 3.5%, while the participation rate in the labor market declined to 66.5% from 66.6%.
The Australian economy lost about 11,500 thousand jobs in January, bringing the number of employment to 13,721,900 million jobs, after losing about 20 thousand jobs in December’s revised reading, while expectations were for an addition of about 19.8 thousand.
The Australian dollar interacted negatively with this data, losing about 40 points against the US dollar, to test 0.6870 levels, before rising with the declines of the US dollar, and is now trading at 0.6917 levels.