• NZD/USD gains to near 0.6230 amid weakness in the US Dollar ahead of the US official employment data for August.
• Investors see the Fed reducing interest rates this month.
• The US Unemployment Rate is seen declining to 4.2% in August.

The NZD/USD pair moves higher to near 0.6230 in Friday’s European session. The Kiwi asset gains as the US Dollar (USD) extends its downside amid growing risks to the United States (US) labor market health due to the long maintenance of restrictive monetary policy stance by the Federal Reserve (Fed).

The US Dollar Index (DXY), which tracks the Greenback’s value against six major currencies, falls below 101.00.

Downside risks to US job market appears to be escalating as new job vacancies and labor demand in the private sector have slowed down significantly. Expanding cracks on the US labor market health has prompted expectations that the Fed could start reducing interest rates this month.

While the Fed is almost certain to begin cutting its key borrowing rates from this month, traders remain split over the likely interest rate cut size. According to the CME Fedwatch tool, the possibility for the Fed to begin reducing interest rates by 50 basis points (bps) to 4.75%-5.00% has increased to 41% from 34% recorded a week ago.

For fresh cues about Fed’s potential rate cut size, investors will focus on the US Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) data for August, which will be published at 12:30 GMT. The NFP report is expected to show that US employers hired 160K new workers in August, higher from 114K in July. In the same period, the Unemployment Rate is expected to have declined to 4.2% from the former release of 4.3%. Signs of weak labor demand and rising jobless rate would boost Fed large rate cut bets, while upbeat figures would do the opposite.