Australian Unemployment Rose to 5.3% - 8.12.2011

The Aussie faced some pressure in early Asian trading hours after the country’s Bureau of Statistics reported an unexpected 0.1% increase in unemployment rate to 5.3%, the highest in 2011. According to the report, the number of people unemployed increased by 9400, driven by a decrease in full-time employment. At the same time Bloomberg noted that employment growth pace in 11 months of the current year is the slowest since 1996. However the favorable GDP data released yesterday that showed a 2.5% annual growth pace in the third quarter allows being optimistic enough about future economic performance. Later in the trading session the Australian dollar managed to recover a part of the losses rising from 1.0230 to 1.0280 against the greenback by the end of the session.