When is aussie jobs report and how could affect AUD/USD?

Australian jobs report (Feb)

Australia's monthly jobs report is back on the cards for Asian markets today. The report will be released at 11.30am AEDT.

January's report offered a small increase. For today's, analysts are expecting employment to pick up in February, but not by enough to improve unemployment rate by any meaningful margin.  

However, today's report will be of even keener interest to markets.  Not only because of the correction that has seen in the greenback post the US jobs last week and the extension of that from the Fed's neutral/dovish hike, but because the ABS will release the quarterly underemployment figures. This data today will provide an update on the degree of labour market slack that exists within the economy at present and the RBA will use this to gauge future wage growth and inflationary pressures. 

How could the data affect AUD/USD?

The key today's data will be centred around part-time and full-time skilled employment. 

In January, employment rose by 13,500 and beat the expectations for a gain of just 10,000. At the same time, December’s increase was revised higher to a rise of 16,300 from the previously reported gain of 13,500.  However, while the data was beating market expectations, this was entirely driven by higher part-time employment. Part-time employment jumped by 58,300 while full-time workers dropped by 44,800.  Should there be an improvement in this ratio the Aussie could attract a strong bid, especially should the unemployment rate drop. Both the unemployment and participation rates are expected to remain steady at 5.7% and 64.6% respectively.  AUD/USD has already rallied hard on the Fed today from below the 0.76 handle to score space on the 0.77 handle. On a surpsing solid report with improvements in key areas of the data, the Aussie could break the 2017 highs of 0.7040. "Disappointing figures could see the pair retreating back towards the 0.7600 region," argued Valeria Bednarik, chief analysts at FXStreet.

Key notes

AUDUSD: Possibly selling at 0.7740

"Possibly selling the Aud at 0.7740, with a tight stop above the 0.7777 November high may be a plan but wait for the jobs data before doing anything I think," - Jim Langlands
FX Charts.

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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).