Australia’s Unemployment Rate steadied at 4.3% in March, according to the official data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Thursday. The figure came in line with the market consensus.
Furthermore, the Australian Employment Change arrived at 17.9K in March from 49.7K in February (revised from 48.9K), compared with the consensus forecast of 20K.
The participation rate in Australia decreased to 66.8% in March from 66.9% in February. Meanwhile, Full-Time Employment increased by 52.5K in the same period from a fall of 27.7K in the previous reading (revised from -30.5K). The Part-Time Employment decreased by 34.6K in March versus a rise of 77.3K prior (revised from 79.4K).
Sean Crick, ABS head of labour statistics, said with the key highlights noted below
Full-time employment rose for both males and females, increasing by 29,000 and 24,000 respectively.
Both the number of males and females working part-time fell this month, down 19,000 and 16,000 respectively.
This month people worked 9.2 million more hours, with full-time hours increasing by 7.1 million and part-time hours increasing by 2.1 million hours.
Market reaction to the Australia’s employment data
The Australian Dollar (AUD) attracts some sellers following the employment data. At the time of writing, the AUD/USD pair is trading 0.06% lower on the day to trade at 0.7165.
Australian Dollar Price This week
The table below shows the percentage change of Australian Dollar (AUD) against listed major currencies this week. Australian Dollar was the strongest against the US Dollar.
| USD | EUR | GBP | JPY | CAD | AUD | NZD | CHF | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USD | -1.09% | -1.30% | -0.48% | -0.97% | -2.52% | -1.86% | -1.17% | |
| EUR | 1.09% | -0.21% | 0.54% | 0.16% | -1.37% | -0.76% | -0.07% | |
| GBP | 1.30% | 0.21% | 0.71% | 0.37% | -1.16% | -0.56% | 0.14% | |
| JPY | 0.48% | -0.54% | -0.71% | -0.47% | -1.96% | -1.28% | -0.70% | |
| CAD | 0.97% | -0.16% | -0.37% | 0.47% | -1.41% | -0.81% | -0.21% | |
| AUD | 2.52% | 1.37% | 1.16% | 1.96% | 1.41% | 0.66% | 1.27% | |
| NZD | 1.86% | 0.76% | 0.56% | 1.28% | 0.81% | -0.66% | 0.70% | |
| CHF | 1.17% | 0.07% | -0.14% | 0.70% | 0.21% | -1.27% | -0.70% |
The heat map shows percentage changes of major currencies against each other. The base currency is picked from the left column, while the quote currency is picked from the top row. For example, if you pick the Australian Dollar from the left column and move along the horizontal line to the US Dollar, the percentage change displayed in the box will represent AUD (base)/USD (quote).
