Australian Dollar Pushes GBP-AUD Below 2.0 on Strong Employment Figures

The pound sterling has run below the 2.0 level against the Australian dollar once more.

Aus dollar strength appears to be a feature of the currency market that has many analysts stumped - just why is the Aussie not playing ball and rising in value when it should be falling in line with institutional forecasts?

One of the answers lies with data - things are not that bad in Australia.

They could be better, as the RBA constantly stresses, but the data does not justify an all-our rout of the AUD.

Pushing the pound to Australian dollar exchange rate (GBPAUD) below the key battle ground area of 2.0 was news that Australian employment grew by 42k in April - far above market expectations of a 15k increase.

With the market rate just below 2.0 high street banks are conducting international payments around 1.9436 while independent specialists are closer to the market at 1.9756.

“Although the April result was revised down to -13.7k (from -2.9k), the overall result of today’s data is very positive. The economy has now added 115k jobs in the past four months, which has pushed annual employment growth to 2.0%,” says Daniel Gradwell at ANZ Research.

The participation rate remained unchanged at 64.7%, while the unemployment rate fell to 6.0%, which is the lowest level in a year.

The increase in employment was spread across both full-time and part-time jobs. Although full-time employment rose by 14.7k, this was not enough to offset a large decline in the previous month.

Part-time employment continued to rise strongly, and is still increasing as a share of total employment, from already-record levels.

“We have been surprised by the strength in employment over recent months, given that the economy continues to grow below trend and employment in the mining industry remains under pressure. Clearly, weak wages growth is helping to support better employment outcomes,” says Gradwell.

Moreover, some indicators suggest that we may see further near-term strength in the labour market – the NAB profits index suggests employment growth could accelerate from here suggestion further support for the Australian dollar lies ahead.

GBP-AUD Well Above 2.0 in 2015

We end this report with the warning that the longer-term picture could actually be less positive for the Aussie dollar.

“With growth set to remain below trend for the next year or so, it is difficult to see how the economy can continue to create enough jobs to absorb solid growth in the labour force, and we continue to expect the unemployment to trend higher. Our current forecast for a peak of 6½% may, however, be too high given the starting point is now lower,” says ANZ’s Gradwell.

This could well keep the prospect of a pound v Aus dollar trading well above 2.0 later in 2015 alive.