The AUD/USD price remained in a tight range remained in a consolidation phase after the Reserve Bank of Australis (RBA) published the latest minutes. It was trading at 0.6293, where it has been in the past few days.
According to the bank, the smaller hike was finely balanced between the need to slow the soaring inflation and that of preventing a deep recession. Analysts now expect that the RBA will deliver two more 0.25% increases in the remaining two meetings of the year. They believe that the official cash rate will peak at 0.25% in 2023.
The next key catalyst for the AUD/USD pair will be the upcoming Australian jobs data. Economists polled by Reuters expect the data to show that the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.5% while the participation rate rose to 66.6%. This unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in more than 50 years.
The Australian labor market has been tightening rapidly. It has the second-worst labor shortage in the OECD after Canada. As a result, the government raised its permanent immigration intake by almost 200k people this year. Still, wage growth has remained relatively under pressure.
The AUD/USD will also react to the latest building permits and housing starts data. Economists expect the data to show that permits dropped from more than 1.54 million to 1.53 million. Housing starts are expected to have dropped to 1.47 million. Still, the impact of these numbers on the Australian dollar will be limited.
