Unwind Of SYCOM Losses Despite Strong Labour Market Report

The Aussie bond space was happy to look through the latest local labour market report, with a modest blip lower unwound. YM & XM both finished unchanged, unwinding their overnight losses on the broader cautious tone.

• The labour market dataset saw a large upswing in the number employed vs. expectations for a dip (+178.8K vs. -27.5K). The upswing in the participation rate (to 65.8% from 64.9%, now only 0.4ppt shy of the 2019 highs) outweighed the move higher in the number employed, but only marginally, with the unemployment rate edging up to 7.0% vs. exp. of 7.1%. Employment gains were pretty well split between full-time (97.0K) and part-time (81.8K). Underemployment and underutilisation both moderated, while the ABS noted that "in seasonally adjusted terms monthly hours worked in all jobs: increased by 20.6 million hours (1.2%) to 1,711 million hours and decreased by 3.4% over the year, which is larger than the 1.0% decrease in employed people." The data provided the latest signs of a solid recovery from the COVID outbreak, but isn't set to impact monetary/fiscal policy, which explains the willingness of the market to look through the release.
• Bills finished unchanged to -1 through the reds, with ~4.0K worth of steepener plays seen in IRH2/M2 in the wake of the labour market report.
• Friday sees the release of flash retail sales data & the weekly AOFM issuance slate.