Australia July jobs data
Employment Change: K
expected -46.2K, prior +29.1K
Unemployment Rate: 4.6% (lowest since 2009)
expected 5.0%, prior 4.9%
Full-Time Employment Change: -4.2K
prior was +51.6K
Part-Time Employment Change: +2.0K
prior was -22.5K
Participation Rate: 66.0%
expected 66.0%, prior was 66.2%
Underemployment 8.3%
- prior 7.9%
One caveat is that total hours worked fell by 0.2%, or by 3 million hours total. Economists at Westpac were forecasting jobs gains and correctly sussed out that it would be hours worked that would decline, not employment.
That's a big beat for Australia employment and the fall in unemployment to 4.6% is a huge surprise. There is a strong trend globally for countries shrugging off the effects of recent lockdowns but no one expected that to apply to a relatively-untouched place like Australia. Perhaps it has.
Initially, AUD/USD isn't exactly cheering the report. The pair ticked slightly higher but is back to pre-release levels at 0.7226.
