Erasing previous session's losses, the Japanese yen advanced against the pound, U.S., Canadian and NZ dollars on Friday after a report showed that U.S. added fewer jobs than expected in August.
The report from Labor Department showed that employment increased by 96,000 jobs in August following a downwardly revised increase of 141,000 jobs in July. Economists had expected an increase of about 125,000 jobs compared to the addition of 163,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month.
Despite the weaker than expected job growth, the unemployment rate dropped to 8.1 percent in August from 8.3 in July amid a notable decrease in the size of the workforce.
The yen climbed to a 4-day high of 78.25 against the greenback, compared to yesterday's closing value of 78.87.
At the same time, the yen gained to 79.97 against the loonie, 63.18 against the kiwi and 125.08 against the pound, compared to early new multi-week low of 80.56, 10-day low of 63.56, new multi-month low of 126.23, respectively.
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Forex News
May 15, 2026 15:25 ET Apart from the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair, the main news on the economics front this week included key price data from the U.S. and the first quarter economic growth figures from major economies. Both consumer prices and producer costs have started to reflect the effect of supply shocks due to the Middle East conflict. In Europe, GDP data was in focus, while inflation data from China dominated the news flow in Asia.