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TOKYO, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The dollar slipped from a six-week high against the yen on Friday as market players awaited the monthly U.S.

jobs report later in the session for clues on whether the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates steady.

The signal from European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet that a rate rise to 3.25 percent is likely in October did little to give the euro a boost on Thursday, with many investors already anticipating such a move.

For the past few weeks the dollar has put in a mixed performance, strengthening against low-yielding currencies like the yen but losing ground to higher-yielding ones such as the New Zealand dollar, which struck a new six-month high.

The yen has suffered the most in the hunt for yield, hitting an all-time low against the euro and an eight-year trough versus the pound and Swiss franc as a slew of soft data has reinforced expectations for the Bank of Japan to lift rates slowly.

''Carry trades have been very popular,'' said Rick Lloyd, head of currency trading at ABN Amro in Sydney.

The BOJ raised overnight rates for the first time in six years in July, but since then officials have stressed that future increases will come only gradually after raising them to 0.25 percent, easily the lowest among major currencies.

The U.S. payrolls report for August is due at 1230 GMT and is expected to show employers added 120,000 jobs on the month, suggesting modest but steady growth that would likely make the Fed comfortable leaving rates at 5.25 percent.

''Our sense is that there is a lot of bad news already in the price, and that it would likely take much weaker-than-expected data results to prompt additional dollar weakness from current levels,'' said currency strategists at Morgan Stanley in a note to clients.

Trading was expected to stay quiet until the release of the employment report and then die down quickly, with U.S. markets closed on Monday for the Labour Day holiday.

By midday in Tokyo trade, the dollar edged down to 117.25 yen after having reached 117.50 on Thursday, the strongest since late July.

Traders said selling by model accounts dragged the U.S. currency lower.

The euro also slipped to 150.10 yen, retreating from the peak of 150.73 yen hit the previous session, its best since the single currency's launch in 1999.

But the euro was little changed at $1.2805 and has been stuck in a tight range between $1.2940 and $1.2695 for the past month.

''You'd be making things up by saying that anything was going on,'' said Lloyd at ABN Amro.

The New Zealand dollar, which offers the highest yields among major currencies at 7.25 percent, retreated to $0.6550 after having pushed up to $0.6570 the highest since early March.

Reflecting the renewed appetite for risk and higher rates, the high-flying New Zealand dollar surged 8.6 percent against the beleaguered yen in August, the best monthly gain in nearly six years.

Investors will also scour monthly manufacturing snapshots for the United States and across Europe, as well as revised euro zone growth figures for the second quarter and the University of Michigan's latest reading on U.S. consumer sentiment.

Data the previous session showed the core PCE index, the Fed's favoured inflation gauge, rose less than expected in July while business activity in the U.S. Midwest cooled.

More such reports would give the Fed confidence that growth is slowing and taking some steam out of price pressures.

The minutes of the Fed's Aug. 8 meeting earlier this week showed most policymakers felt there was a bigger risk to tightening policy too much than stopping to assess the economy's health.

REUTERS MQA BS1045