The Australian dollar was lower yesterday after worldwide confidence was dented by news on Friday of weaker than expected employment growth in the US last month.
At 5pm, the dollar was buying $US1.0379, down US0.36c.
The US jobs report showed employers added 88,000 jobs last month, below forecasts for 200,000. The unemployment rate fell one-tenth of a percentage point to 7.6 per cent, though the decline was largely a result of people dropping out of the workforce.
The weakness dampened talk that the US Federal Reserve might soon consider trimming some of the stimulus it had been injecting into the US economy to support economic growth.
"The US labour market remains far from normal . . . the non-farm payrolls data will push out expectations of the Fed winding back the pace of asset purchases," ANZ Bank said in a note to clients.
News that Portugal's constitutional court had rejected some austerity measures being forced on the country also sent shudders through world markets.
"The result is that there's a hole in the austerity plan (in Portugal) and everyone else is looking to see what happens. Europe has no growth plan and austerity into recessions is unpopular," Societe Generale global macro strategist Kit Juckes said.
With US corporate earnings season getting ready to kick off, later trade in the Australian dollar -- a risk barometer for global markets -- was further muted.
Traders expect some weaker profit announcements in the US, which will add to the fresh wave of gloom that has enveloped markets since the payrolls data was announced, CMC Market currency strategist Tim Waterer said.
"Traders are anticipating some slightly weaker results from corporate America than what we have become accustomed to in prior earnings seasons," he said.
Locally the number of job ads, as surveyed by the ANZ Bank, fell last month but not by enough to spark fresh talk of interest rate cuts.
The number of job ads in Australian newspapers and on the internet fell by 1.5 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms last month from February, ANZ said.
