The Australian dollar is far and beyond the top performer of the day in the aftermath of solid employment statistics published earlier on Thursday.

Earlier on Thursday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that the economy created 30.9k jobs in August, much more than the expected 25.0k gain and the prior 25.0k increase.

The unemployment rate dropped to 5.1%, further than expectations for a decline to 5.2% from 5.3%.

Details of the report were also very strong with 53.1k full time jobs created compared to the prior month’s 9.6k decline, while part time employment fell 22.1k after a 34.6k increase in July.

The news sparked a solid rally in the Australian dollar with AUD/USD popping 52 pips to 0.9223, in the minutes following the announcement. The pair has continued to rally throughout the day, hitting an intraday high of 0.9261, its best levels since May 4.

From a technical standpoint, the momentum behind AUD/USD remains clearly bullish with the pair broadly ascending higher since August 25th’s 0.8771 low, bolstered by some very upbeat economic data over the last several weeks.

The pair is now gearing up to test some heavily congested resistance levels from April and May, culminating in the April 12th high of 0.9389.

On the flip side, this week’s interest rate decision from the Reserve Bank of Australia continued to highlight uncertainties surrounding the global economy, so it may take some additional upbeat economic news to push the central bank towards hiking interest rates, and sending the Australian dollar even higher.