- January 10, 2025
- Posted by: Melanie Scott
- Category: Market News
Strong jobs data out of the US this morning popped the USD only marginally higher against CAD as CAD remained resilient with their own solid employment report for December. Today’s Canadian data showed a far greater increase in employment than expected with 90.9K employed over the last month compared to the forecasted 24.9k and previous 50.5k. Unemployment in December improved slightly to 6.7% compared to the expected 6.9% and down from November’s 6.8%.
In the US, the increase in average hourly earnings matched the expectation at 0.3%, previously 0.4% in November. Unemployment rate continues to bounce between 4.2% and 4.1% as we’ve seen for the last 5 months, this time landing at 4.1% in December (better than forecasted 4.2%). Non-farm employment change showed an impressive 256k increase, significantly better than the expected 164k.
The data supports the expectation of an extended Fed pause with markets pricing in only 33bps of cuts for the entire year. The BoC is likely to hold this month after 2024’s jumbo cuts, with less than 50 bps in additional cuts priced in for the coming year.
The CAD is closing the week with a small net gain on USD and the market looks forward to next week’s US December inflation data.