Investing.com - The dollar held onto modest gains against the other major currencies on Friday, as investors were eyeing the release of highly-anticipated U.S. jobs data due later in the day.
The greenback initially weakened after payrolls processor ADP reported on Thursday that U.S. private employers added 158,000 jobs in June, well below economists' expectations.
A separate report showed that initial jobless claims unexpectedly rose by 4,000 to 248,000 last week.
The data came after Wednesday’s minutes of the Federal Reserve’s June meeting showed a lack of consensus among policymakers over the outlook for inflation and how it could impact the future pace of interest rate increases.
The Fed hiked rates at its June meeting and stuck to its forecast for one more rate hike this year and three in 2018, but the subdued inflation outlook has since raised doubts over whether the Fed will be able to stick to its planned tightening path.
EUR/USD was littke changed at 1.1419.
The single currency found support after the minutes of the European Central Bank’s June meeting on Thursday showed that officials discussed removing the easing bias from its latest monetary policy statement, before deciding against it.
Elsewhere, GBP/USD slid 0.40% to trade at 1.2917 after the U.K. Office for National Statistics reported that manufacturing production fell 0.2% in May, disappointing expectations for a 0.5% rise and after an increase of 0.2% the previous month.
Year-on-year, manufacturing production increased by 0.4%, less than the expeccted 1.0% advance.
The report also showed that industrial production slipped 0.1% in May, compared to expectations for a 0.4% rise.
USD/JPY advanced 0.47% to 113.75, while USD/CHF added 0.16% to trade at 0.9620.
The Australian dollar was stronger, with AUD/USD up 0.12% at 0.7595, while NZD/USD held steady at 0.7276.
Meanwhile, USD/CAD was almost unchanged at 1.2981.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.15% at 95.72.