(Dec 12): Australia’s unemployment rate unexpectedly fell in November as the nation’s golden streak of hiring gains extended, underscoring the resilience of the labour market to elevated interest rates and prompting traders to pare back bets of a February cut.

The Australian dollar rose while the yield on policy-sensitive three-year notes jumped after official data on Thursday showed the jobless rate slipped to 3.9%, down from 4.1% the prior month and below economists’ expectations. Employment beat forecast by rising 35,600 and was driven entirely by full-time jobs, the data showed.

The stronger-than-expected outcome comes the week Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) governor Michele Bullock made a surprising dovish tilt, citing weaker economic impulse and signs of easing price pressures as the central bank kept the key rate on hold at 4.35%. The Australian dollar and policy sensitive three-year yields have pared most of their decline since the RBA’s meeting. 

“The RBA’s dovish leanings in the December policy statement will need to be reassessed,” said Faraz Syed, an economist at Citigroup Inc. “We stick with the first cut occurring in May but reiterate the risk that the first easing does not occur until August 2025, making the RBA a further outlier from global peers.”

Traders pared expectations of RBA easing, pricing the chance of a cut in February to a coin toss from more than 70% prior to the jobs print, according to meeting-linked swaps data compiled by Bloomberg. The timing of follow-up cuts were also pushed back, the data show. 

While sentiment is swinging away from a February cut, the central bank may decide that weaker economic and wage growth and signs of slowing inflation are enough to ease policy, said Andrew Ticehurst, a senior rates strategist at Nomura in Sydney. “Low inflation can still allow a rate cut, even if today’s unemployment rate does not suggest we require one.”

Uploaded by Felyx Teoh