U.S. dollar drops amid downbeat data

The U.S. dollar lost against other currencies Friday as a job data of the country came out worse than expected.

U.S. total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 142,000 in September, well below market consensus of 203,000, the Labor Department announced Friday. Thus far in 2015, job growth has averaged 198,000 per month, compared with an average monthly gain of 260,000 in 2014.

In September, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls fell by 1 cent to 25.09 U.S. dollars, also missing estimates.

The unemployment rate held at 5.1 percent in September. Over the year, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons were down by 0.8 percentage point and 1.3 million, respectively.

The data saw investors scale back expectations for a rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve, which weighed on the dollar.

In late New York trading, the euro gained to 1.1225 dollars from 1.1185 dollars of the previous session, and the British pound increased to 1.5193 dollars from 1.5132 dollars. The Australian dollar went up to 0.7032 dollars from 0.7031 dollars.

The dollar bought 119.88 Japanese yen, lower than 119.92 yen of the previous session. The dollar moved down to 0.9707 Swiss francs from 0.9777 Swiss francs, and it moved down to 1.3189 Canadian dollars from 1.3257 Canadian dollars. Enditem