AUD: Solid employment report not new for RBA – TDS

Research Team at TDS, suggests that the RBA has long-held the view that the labour market is solid, for a while last year defying otherwise soft economic growth.

Key Quotes

“As GDP accelerated to 3%/yr by end-2015, at last there was consistency between solid employment and decent GDP growth.

Employment in March jumped by +26.1k (Feb revised from +300 to a small fall, middle chart) with a shift into part-time (+35k) from full-time (-8.8k). The participation rate stepped down from 65.1% in Jan to 64.9% in February (revised) and remained there in March, hence the unemployment rate fell to 5.7%, the lowest since September 2013.

The AUD could not rally on the strong headlines as USD buying was dominating this Asian session. The AUD at $US0.765 is somewhat of a relief after the relentless rally from $US0.75 to $US0.772 over the past week.”