Investing.com - The pound slipped lower against the U.S. dollar on Monday, re-approaching a one-month trough as demand for the greenback remained broadly supported by Friday's upbeat U.S. employment data.
GBP/USD hit 1.5236 during European morning trade, the session low; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.5238, shedding 0.23%.
Cable was likely to find support at 1.5168, the low of June 1 and resistance at 1.5370, the high of June 5.
The greenback strengthened broadly after the Labor Department reported on Friday that the U.S. economy added 280,000 jobs in May, ahead of economists forecast for 220,000. The unemployment rate ticked up to 5.5% from 5.4% in the previous month.
April’s payrolls report was revised to show that 221,000 jobs were created.
Hourly earnings increased 0.3% in May, after a 0.2% increase in April.
The upbeat data, particularly the pick-up in wage growth underlined the view that the economy is on track to rebound after a weak first quarter and bolstered expectations that the Federal Reserve could start to hike interest rates at its September policy meeting.
Sterling was lower against the euro, with EUR/GBP rising 0.30% to 0.7299.
Earlier Monday, official data showed that German industrial production rose 0.9% in April, exceeding expectations for a 0.5% gain. The change in industrial production for March was revised to 0.4% downtick from a previously estimated 0.5% fall.
But investors remained cautious as European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker urged Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras over the weekend to come up with alternative economic reforms "swiftly" so that negotiations could continue this week.
Athens delayed a key debt payment to the International Monetary Fund on Friday after Tsipras rejected the proposed reforms put forward by the EC as “absurd”.