Employment Data

Job numbers feed straight into interest rate expectations, which is why they move currencies more than most data.

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Next release Not yet in the calendar The calendar is filled from the published schedule, usually two weeks ahead.

Dates come from the same table as the economic calendar, which is updated from the published schedule. Times shown are GMT; the calendar converts them.

Jobs at a glance

Published byThe national statistics office of each country
Usually releasedMonthly for most countries, weekly for United States jobless claims
Typical impact ratingHigh
CurrencyWhichever country publishes it
Moves gold?Commonly, since gold is priced in dollars

What is published

Usually three things at once: the change in the number of people employed, the unemployment rate, and a measure of wage growth. Different countries emphasise different ones, and each has its own name — Non-Farm Payrolls in the United States, the Claimant Count in the United Kingdom, Employment Change in Australia and Canada.

Wages often matter more than jobs

A strong jobs number with flat wages tells a central bank less than a moderate jobs number with rising wages, because wage growth feeds directly into inflation. This is why a market reaction can appear to contradict the headline.

The unemployment rate can mislead

It falls when people find work and also when people stop looking. A falling rate alongside a shrinking participation rate is a weaker signal than the headline suggests, and the market usually reads both.

Weekly claims

The United States publishes initial jobless claims every Thursday. Individually they rarely move much; a sustained change in the four week trend does.

Recent releases

What was published, against what was expected. The market reacts to the gap between forecast and actual, not to whether the number was good.

DateCurrencyActualForecastPrevious
11 Sept 2026 EUR 5.4% 5.3%
9 Sept 2026 USD 10.0K
7 Sept 2026 EUR 0.1% 0.1%
7 Sept 2026 CHF 3.1% 3.1%
4 Sept 2026 USD 4.1% 4.1%
4 Sept 2026 USD 55K -23K
4 Sept 2026 CAD 6.4% 6.4%
4 Sept 2026 CAD 15.1K 75.1K

Questions

Which employment release matters most?

United States Non-Farm Payrolls, because of the dollar’s reach. It has its own page on this site.

Why did the currency fall on a strong jobs number?

Most often because wage growth in the same release was weak, or because a previous month was revised down sharply. The headline is one part of a release with several.

Are weekly jobless claims worth watching?

The trend is, the individual week usually is not. A single week is noisy and rarely moves a major pair by itself.

Did this release cost you money?

The journal on this site records the date of every trade and compares your results on days with a high impact release against every other day. That turns a general worry about trading the news into a figure about your own record.

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