$A up after surprisingly good jobs data The Australian dollar is higher after strong employment figures made the possibility of another official interest rate cut less likely. At 1700 AEST on Thursday, the local unit was trading at 102.43 US cents, up from 102.01 cents on Wednesday. The unemployment rate fell 0.1 per cent to 5.5 per cent in April and the total number of people with jobs rose by 50,100, exceeding market expectations of a gain of 11,000. After the figures were released, the Australian dollar jumped three quarters of a US cent to an intraday high of 102.55 US cents. RBC Capital Markets senior currency strategist Sue Trinh said the Australian dollar outperformed most of the major currencies on the back of the jobs figures. "We are mindful of the volatility in the headline employment numbers, which has stepped up recently, but the reality is that monthly employment has averaged a solid 26,500 this year," she said. The firmer tone to the labour market appears consistent with what is shaping up to be a healthy first quarter gross domestic product print and reasonable economic growth in early 2013. Ms Trinh said the offshore session on Thursday night would focus on the release of weekly US jobless claims and UK industrial production data. On Friday, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will release its quarterly Statement on Monetary Policy, which includes its latest economic forecasts. At 1700 AEST, the Australian dollar was at 101.16 Japanese yen, up from Wednesday's close of 100.82 yen, and at 77.90 euro cents, up from 77.78 euro cents. Meanwhile, Australian bond futures prices fell after the better than expected jobs data . ANZ head of interest rate research Tony Morriss said the labour force report was the big event of the day and the figures were very impressive. "It does raise questions about the scope for the Reserve Bank of Australia to follow up this week's rate cut with another rate cut next month," he said. There's been been some circumspection about that. On Tuesday, the RBA cut the cash rate by quarter of a percentage point to a record low of 2.75 per cent. Mr Morriss said a bigger factor for the RBA's next interest rate decision would be the release of March quarter business investment data on May 30, almost a week before the central bank's June board meeting. At 1630 AEST, the June 10-year bond futures contract was trading at 96.845 (implying a yield of 3.155 per cent), down from 96.870 (3.130 per cent) on Wednesday.