AUSTRALIA UNEMPLOYMENT RATE EXPECTED TO RISE BACK TO 3.9% IN MARCH AS FEBRUARY BOOST FADES

• The Australian Unemployment Rate is expected to have ticked higher in March.
• Employment Change is foreseen losing momentum after the outstanding February figure.
• AUD/USD corrective advance may provide bears the chance to sell at higher levels.

Australia will publish its monthly employment report first thing Thursday. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is expected to announce the country added measly 7.2K new positions in March after the outstanding 116.5K jobs created in February. The Unemployment Rate is foreseen at 3.9% after dropping to a six-month low of 3.7% in the previous month. In February, the trend unemployment rate remained at 3.8% for the sixth month in a row.

Australia reports the monthly Employment Change split into full-time and part-time positions. Generally speaking, full-time jobs imply working 38 hours per week or more and usually include additional benefits, but they mostly represent consistent income. On the other hand, part-time employment generally means higher hourly rates but lacks consistency and benefits. That’s why the economy prefers full-time jobs.

Scrutinizing the impressive February headline, Australia created 38.3K part-time roles and added a whopping 78.2K full-time ones. “The large increase in employment in February followed larger-than-usual numbers of people in December and January who had a job that they were waiting to start or to return to. This translated into a larger-than-usual flow of people into employment in February and even more so than February last year,” according to the official ABS report.