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Investing.com — U.S. stock markets opened mixed on Friday, on course to end the week lower after a hard-to-read employment report that failed to dispel worries about labor shortages and inflationary pressures, despite a sharp slowdown in headline jobs growth.
By 9:45 AM ET (1445 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 41 points, or 0.1%, at 34,681 points. The S&P 500 was also up 0.1% but the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.4%, amid suspicions that the report will do little to convince the Federal Reserve to change its mind about hurrying up the end of its bond purchases.
The Labor Department had said earlier that nonfarm payrolls grew by only 210,000 in October, the smallest monthly gain all year and well below the 550,000 consensus forecast. However, other parts of the report painted a brighter picture, with the unemployment rate falling to 4.2% as labor force participation rose to its highest level since the start of the pandemic. Both permanent and temporary layoffs also fell to their lowest level in over a year.
