US ADP Employment report shows unexpected increase. Factory orders fall. - CountingPips Forex & Currency Trading Blog

April 2, 2008 - Forex Economic News

US ADP Employment report shows unexpected increase. Factory orders fall.

U.S. employment data was released today in the form of the ADP National Employment Report which showed an unexpected increase in jobs for March. Nonfarm private employment increased from February to March by 8,000 jobs. This follows the January to February revised loss of 18,000 jobs. The increase in March jobs beat market forecasts that were expecting a decline of 45,000 jobs. The service-providing sector provided a boost to the employment numbers with a gain of 85,000 jobs in March while the goods-producing sector showed the biggest decline with a loss of 77,000 jobs. Manufacturing marked its 19th straight month of employment decline with a loss of 58,000 jobs. Large businesses with more than 500 employees declined by 52,000 jobs while small and medium sized businesses combined to produce a gain of 60,000 jobs in March.

U.S. Factory Orders fall in February.

Factory Orders in the U.S. declined 1.3 percent in the month of February according to a report released by U.S. Commerce Department today. February orders for manufactured goods fell by $5.7 billion to $424.4 billion following a decrease of 2.3 percent in January. Economic forecasts had expected factory orders to fall by 0.8 percent. Shipments of manufactured goods fell by 2.1 percent in February while unfilled orders increased for the 33rd out of the last 34 months.

New orders for manufactured durable goods also fell in February by 1.1 percent. Durable goods are products generally considered to last longer than 3 years. Shipments for durable goods were down 2.7 percent in February following an increase of 2.3 percent in January. Unfilled orders and inventories of durable goods both increased for February by 0.9 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively.

The U.S. dollar has continued its strong showing this week with gains against many of the major currencies today. The EUR/USD pair traded as low as 1.5580 before increasing back above the 1.5600 level while the dollar is approaching 103 yen per dollar in the U.S. session today after trading as low as 97 yen per dollar on March 17th.

Tags: us dollar, factory orders, adp employment, private jobs, durable goods, manufactured goods

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