When is the Australian employment report and how could it affect AUD/USD?

May month employment statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, up for publishing at 01:30 GMT on Thursday, will be the immediate catalyst for the AUD/USD pair traders.

Market consensus suggests that the headline Unemployment Rate may remain unchanged at 3.7% on a seasonally adjusted whereas the Employment Change could rise by 15.0K versus the previous contraction of 4.3K. Further, the Participation Rate is expected to remain unchanged at 66.7% during the stated month.

Considering the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) hawkish surprise and the recently mixed Australia Wage Price Index data, today’s Aussie inflation expectations and employment numbers appear more important for the AUD/USD pair.

Ahead of the event, FXStreet’s Matias Salord mentioned,

How could the data affect AUD/USD?

AUD/USD remains pressured near 0.6790 ahead of the key Aussie data. The risk-barometer pair’s latest weakness could be linked to the market’s fears of more rate hikes from the US Federal Reserve (Fed), even if the US central bank paused the rate hike trajectory the previous day. Also challenging the Aussie pair is the receding hawkish bias about the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), especially after the latest rounds of mixed Aussie data about inflation, employment and business sentiment.

That said, today’s Australian employment report for May is less likely to work as a positive catalyst for the AUD/USD unless posting an extremely upbeat outcome. The reason could be linked to the market’s favor for the US Dollar hawkish Federal Reserve (Fed) commentary. However, a knee-jerk reaction to the top-tier statistic can’t be ruled out.

Technically, a failure to provide a daily closing beyond May’s high of 0.6818 joins nearly overbought RSI (14) to challenge AUD/USD buyers.

Key Notes

AUD/USD dribbles near 0.6800 after Fed-induced volatility near multi-day top, focus on Australia employment

Australian Employment Preview: Can the Aussie handle a slowdown in job creation?

About the Employment Change

The Employment Change released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics is a measure of the change in the number of employed people in Australia. Generally speaking, a rise in this indicator has positive implications for consumer spending which stimulates economic growth. Therefore, a high reading is seen as positive (or bullish) for the AUD, while a low reading is seen as negative (or bearish).

About the Unemployment Rate

The Unemployment Rate released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics is the number of unemployed workers divided by the total civilian labor force. If the rate hikes, indicates a lack of expansion within the Australian labor market. As a result, a rise leads to weaken the Australian economy. A decrease of the figure is seen as positive (or bullish) for the AUD, while an increase is seen as negative (or bearish).