Investing.com - The Australian dollar dropped against its U.S. counterpart on Thursday, weighed by weak Australian jobs data, while the New Zealand dollar edged higher after the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting were released.
AUD/USD slid 0.54% to 0.7146.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics said that the number of employed people declined by 7,900 in January, disappointing expectations for an increase of 15,000. The number of employed people fell by 800 in December, whose figure was revised from a previously estimated 1,000 drop.
The report also showed that Australia’s unemployment rate ticked up to 6.0% last month from 5.8% in December. Analysts had expected the unemployment rate to remain unchanged in January.
NZD/USD added 0.19% to trade at 0.6642.
In the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s January policy meeting, policymakers worried that tighter global financial conditions could weigh on the U.S. economy and considered changing their planned path of interest rate hikes in 2016.
However, they added that it would be premature to change their outlook for the U.S. economy and said they would closely monitor global economic developments as well as oil and stock prices.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was down 0.09% at 96.78, off Wednesday’s one-and-a-half week high of 97.11.