WHEN IS THE AUSTRALIAN EMPLOYMENT REPORT AND HOW COULD IT AFFECT AUD/USD?

February month employment statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, up for publishing at 00:30 GMT on Thursday, will be the immediate catalyst for the AUD/USD pair traders.

Market consensus suggests that the headline Unemployment Rate may ease to 3.6% on a seasonally adjusted basis versus the 3.7% prior whereas Employment Change could rise by 48.5K versus the previous contraction of 11.5K. Further, the Participation Rate is expected to improve to 66.6% versus 66.5% prior level.

Adding importance to the 00:30 GMT time is the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Bulletin for the fourth quarter (Q4).

Considering the RBA policymakers’ struggle to defend the hawkish bias, especially with the fresh banking crisis and easing inflation clues, today’s Aussie jobs report become crucial for the AUD/USD pair traders.

Ahead of the event, FXStreet’s Valeria Bednarik mentioned

An upbeat report could help it recover some ground, although the sour sentiment extends throughout the different sessions, the bounce could be short-lived, and the pair would resume its decline once the dust settles. A strong static resistance area comes in at around 0.6710, where the pair topped a couple of times this week.