Pandemic will continue to impact the employment market
News has improved on the Australian pandemic situation as the vaccination rate ramps up. Beyond that, rising commodity prices are a major tailwind for the Australian dollar once we settle into the post pandemic period.
That's being reflected today in what's been a choppy day of trading. AUD/USD is up 30 pips to 0.7377 and pressing against yesterday's high, which was the best level in a month.
Last month's jobs report showed a 146K decline including 68K full time job lesses. It was the worst since early in the global pandemic.
There's no reason to expect a quick improvement with heavy lockdowns continuing through September. The consensus is for another 137.5K jobs lost and unemployment ticking up to 4.8% from 4.5%.
The good news in Australia and globally is that the pandemic is not worsening. This chart shows changes and improvements in the seven-day average compared to the prior week.
Overall, I think that's an underreported story. There was a built in fifth wave globally but it's looking like (crosses fingers) we could be putting this nightmare behind us.
