US April Non - farm Payrolls Report: A Key Variable for Markets

The US April non - farm payrolls report is set to be a crucial variable for the markets. The market generally expects the addition of 130,000 jobs, the unemployment rate to remain at 4.2%, and the annual growth rate of average hourly earnings to slow to 3.9%. If the data is significantly lower than expected, say the new jobs added are less than 100,000, it may intensify market concerns about a "hard landing" of the US economy, pushing the US dollar index down to test the 98.5 support level, and the pound - dollar exchange rate may test the 1.34 resistance area.