By Hannah Lang and Harry Robertson
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) -The U.S. dollar rose after data showed that U.S. job growth slowed in January but that the unemployment rate edged down to 4.0%, giving the U.S. Federal Reserve cover to hold off cutting interest rates until at least June.
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 143,000 jobs last month after rising by an upwardly revised 307,000 in December, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its closely watched employment report on Friday.
Economists had expected the survey to show 170,000 jobs added.
The dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency against the yen, sterling and other peers, rose to as high as 108.02. It was last up 0.204% at 107.88.
The U.S. currency has fallen around 2% from Monday’s high of 109.88 as investor nerves over global trade war risks have eased.
The euro fell after the data readout, and was last down 0.2% at 1.0362.
The dollar rose 0.27% against the yen at 151.9 after falling below 151 yen for the first time since Dec. 10 in early Asian trade.
(Reporting by Hannah Lang in New York and Harry Robertson in London; additional reporting by Brigid Riley in Tokyo; editing by Shri Navaratnam, Kim Coghill, Aidan Lewis, Mark Heinrich and Jane Merriman)
