Stunning market speculators, employment data in the Australian economy was far better than anyone would have guessed.  Estimated to have shown a stabilizing loss of 10,000 positions, the Pacific economy actually added jobs for the month of September, to the tune of almost 41,000.  Subsequently the unemployment rate ticked lower by 0.1 percent from last month’s 5.8 percent print.  The news gets even better when considering the fact that analysts’ estimates pitted the figure a tick higher at 6.0 percent.

Both full and part time positions were filled, with the former gaining by an impressive 35,400 positions.  Additionally supportive for the overall positive number was the increasing demand for infrastructure positions on the rising number of governmental projects.

Nonetheless, rising for the second time in three months, tonight’s unemployment report gives Australian dollar fans plenty to be cheering about.  The recent spate of information blends well with retail sales support and rising consumer and business sentiment.  As a result, yesterday’s rate decision by the Reserve Bank of Australia seems to be justified, helping the Australian dollar gain further traction against the U.S. dollar – skyrocketing to a 13-month high at 0.9015.

Further strength can be expected in the medium term as it seems confidence in the country’s rebound prospects remain well supported compared to the economic picture of the U.S.  Expectations are already growing of another rate increase in the last two months of the year, by an additional 25 basis points.  This fact alone will help further ingrain the carry potential of the Aussie versus the greenback as the latter continues to be the “funding” currency of choice.

Tags: aud/usd, Australia unemployment, US Dollar

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 at 9:01 pm and is filed under Australian Dollar, Economic Indicators, US Dollar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.