Australian Dollar Falls as Unemployment Grows

The Australian dollar fell today after the employment data came out much worse than was expected, prompting the speculation that the central bank will cut its interest rates.

The number of employed persons in Australia decreased by 9,700 in August, being nothing near the median estimate of an advance by 10,700. July decline was revised from only 100 to 4,100. The poor employment resulted in the unexpected increase of unemployment rate to 5.3 percent. The bad data spurred the speculation the Reserve Bank of Australia will be forced to decrease its key cash rate that it has kept unchanged on September 6 for the ninth consecutive time.

AUD/USD traded near 1.0632 today as of 9:57 GMT after falling from 1.0659 to 1.0571. AUD/JPY traded at about 82.22, rebounding after it dropped from 82.34 to 81.78.

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