The Australian Dollar was hit hard in yesterday’s trading session after the latest job figures released to the market came in under expectations which has left traders placing bets on further rate cuts from the Reserve Bank of Australia and also left the door open for the bank to introduce a quantitative easing program

The Australian economy unexpectedly lost 19 thousand jobs last month while the unemployment rate jumped from 5.2% to 5.3% and caught investors off guard

Expectations from the market were for a net gain of 15 thousand new positions and the jobless rate was supposed to remain steady at 5.2 percent.The figures will not be welcomed by the RBA, which has already slashed interest rates three times this year to help the country reach full employment and also push inflation towards its 2 to 3 percent target range.

The jobless figures follow poor retail sales data and key industrial production figures from China which is so important to the Australian economy as the country is Australia’s largest trading partner and has in recent years kept the Australian economy afloat.
Retail sales figures from China rose by 7.2 percent in October, which was well below the previous month’s figure of 7.8 percent and was what the market was expecting again. Industrial production rose by 4.7 percent, but was well below last month’s 5.5 percent figure and the slowdown is expected to reduce demand for Iron ore, Australia’s biggest and probably most important export 

The RBA said this month it would wait and see what the effects of its past rate cuts are before taking any making any further moves but now it looks like they will be forced to act.

" The Australian dollar can move lower towards its 17 October low of 0.6753 over coming days as market participants increase expectations for additional RBA rate cuts," says Kim Mundy, a strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. 
"Australian futures are currently pricing a 28 percent chance of a 25bp cut to the cash rate in December, up from around 15 percent yesterday. However, we expect the RBA will remain on hold for the remainder of 2019 to fully assess the impact of recent rate cuts before cutting the cash rate by 25bps to 0.50 percent in February 2020." She added.