The US economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, the Labor Department said, compared with economists’ expectations for an increase of 80,000 jobs, according to a Reuters poll. The US unemployment rate fell to 4.1 per cent as the labour participation rate fell to a near five-and-a-half-year low of 61.4 per cent. The two-year note yield, which typically moves in step with Fed rate expectations, fell 4.2 basis points (bps) to 4.245 per cent. It was set to a weekly loss of 0.31 per cent last week, making the second consecutive week of declines. Gold rose as the dollar fell.