The Pound Sterling is retreating against the USD. The current quote for the instrument is 1.1012.
The USD is raising pressure on other currencies. The reason is global risk aversion in capital markets.
The statistics published by the United Kingdom in the morning were rather mixed. For example, the Unemployment Rate dropped to 3.5% in August after being 3.6% the month before, although it wasn’t expected to change. The Average Earnings Index gained 6.0% 3m/y after adding 5.5% 3m/y in the previous period and against the expected growth of 5.9% 3m/y.
It appears that the growth in salaries is the result of mass strikes that took place in the UK in July and August.
There is some tension resulting from the Claimant Count Change report, which showed 25.5K in September against the expected reading of 4.2K. At the same time, the August reading was revised upwards, from 6.3K to 1.1K.
In September, the labour market might have lost a lot of job due to seasonal periodicity. However, if the October data confirms the trend, one may talk about an escalation of the labour market crisis. For the Pound, it’s bad news.
