There has been an unexpected development since our earlier report regarding US figures.
This morning we stated that economists participating in a Bloomberg survey had forecast a 0.1 per cent rise in US unemployment, however results released in the past few hours defied their expectations.
With his re-election on the line President Barack Obama was no doubt delighted to learn that US unemployment actually fell in September to an almost 4-year low.
Rather than rising to 8.2 per cent as predicted the figure released by the Labour Department actually came in at 7.8, recording a drop of 0.3 per cent.
There was an increase in employment of 873,000 in September according to the household survey. Part-time positions accounted for the acquisition of 582,000 American jobs last month.
According to TD Securities Inc’s head of rates and foreign-exchange research this result shows that ‘The labour market is slowly regaining footing. The Federal Reserve wants to see traction, faster growth.’
It wasn’t all good news however. The ‘underemployment rate’ (which includes those workers looking for full time employment whilst being engaged in part-time or temporary positions) remained unchanged at 14.7 per cent. Also, following Augusts’ decrease of 22,000 factory-based jobs no change was forecast for September and yet factories disposed of a further 16,000 positions.
But (as we always like to dwell on the positives here at Euro Exchange Rate News) today’s report did show a positive increase in average hourly earnings of 0.3 per cent.
With unemployment being the biggest bone of contention in the current US election battle these penultimate figures could prove decisive.
The Pound to Euro exchange rate is currently trading at 1.2404
The Pound to US Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 1.6202
The Pound to Australian Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 1.5795
The Euro to US Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 1.3058
The Euro to Pound exchange rate is currently trading at 0.8059
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