Thursday July 2, 02:02 PM
Europe shares hit day's low after U.S. payroll data
LONDON, July 2 (Reuters) - European shares extended losses in afternoon session on Thursday after U.S. non-farm payrolls data showed employers cut more jobs than expected.
At 1238 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was down 1.7 percent at 851.24 points after hitting a session low of 850.28.
U.S. employers cut 467,000 jobs in June, far more than expected, while the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, the government said on Thursday in a report that showed a labour market continuing to struggle with a deep recession.
The June job losses were more than 100,000 greater than the 363,000 consensus of Wall Street economists polled by Reuters and broke a four-month trend of moderation in job losses.
The European Central Bank kept euro zone interest rates at 1.0 percent on Thursday, and markets expect it to hold them at the all-time low for much of next year to help repair the region's economy. The decision had been seen as a near certainty.
Futures for the Dow Jones (news) , S&P 500 and Nasdaq (NASDAQ: news) were down between 0.6 and 1.4 percent.
(Reporting by Brian Gorman) Keywords: MARKETS EUROPE STOCKS/EXTEND
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