The dollar strengthened against its main rivals Friday despite a disappointing reading on August jobs growth. The Department of Labor reported that the U.S. economy created 173,000 jobs in August, missing a consensus estimate for 213,000 new jobs by a wide margin. But the report was actually a lot stronger than its headline number would suggest, said Andrew Dilz, a currency strategist at Tempus Inc. Job gains for July and June were revised up by a combined 44,000, which brought the unemployment rate down to 5.1%. "The Fed deems that [unemployment rate] full employment and that provides even more support to the case to hike interest rates," Dilz said. The euro EURUSD, -0.0629% fell to $1.1105 in recent trade from $1.1130 ahead of the report. The dollar edged higher to 119.30 yen USDJPY, -0.77% from 119.20 yen ahead of the report. The pound GBPUSD, -0.2097% was little-changed at $1.5222.
