Aussie Dollar Rises on Strong Jobs Data

2026-02-19 02:11 By Joshua Ferrer 1 min. read

The Australian dollar strengthened to around $0.706 on Thursday, trading near three-year highs, as investors bolstered bets on a follow-up rate hike in May after the labor market remained resilient.

Data showed the unemployment rate remained unchanged at a seven-month low of 4.1% in January, while employment rose 17,800.

The upbeat figures reinforced the Reserve Bank's view that the labor market remains tight and pushed markets to price about a 77% chance of a 25-bp increase to 4.10% in May, up from 70% before the report.

Though most economists still expect rates to stay unchanged in March.

The data also bolstered the Australian dollar's more than 5.5% gain this year, making it the second-best-performing Group-of-10 currency.

The employment report provides key guidance for policymakers aiming to bring inflation back to the 2–3% target.

This month, the central bank raised its core inflation forecasts by 0.5 percentage points and expects inflation to remain above target through the year.



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