US dollar jumps after a sizzling December non-farm payrolls report

The December jobs report easily beat expectations, highlighting the continued resilience in the US labor market as employers added 256,000 jobs, significantly above the consensus forecast of 160,000. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.1% from 4.2%, coming in below economists’ expectations and reaching its lowest level since July.

The US dollar rose 80-100 pips across the board with other currencies hitting multi-month or multi-year lows virtually across the board.

The euro fell to a low of 1.0217 from 1.0306 before the data, but has since bounced 35 pips.

At the lows, the euro was at the worst level since 2022.

A particularly significant breakdown came in the Australian dollar, which broke the 2022 low on the jobs report and is now at the worst levels since 2020.

This report will give the Fed a headache and is the second solid number since a +36K reading in October. It’s some of the first good data showing a true post-election bump, though I would caution that December employment numbers are full of seasonal adjustments due to the holidays and short-term retail hiring.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.