US stocks open higher after strong May jobs data, Dow +2.8pc
- Instead, unemployment fell to 13.3 percent.
NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks jumped in opening trading Friday after a surprisingly good May jobs report estimated the US economy gained 2.5 million jobs despite the coronavirus.
About 15 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 27,023.46, up 2.8 percent.
The broad-based S&P 500 gained 2.2 percent to 3,180.25, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 1.6 percent to 9,769.94.
The May Department of Labor jobs report defied even the most optimistic expectations among economists, who had been expecting job losses of more than eight million and a jobless rate of 20 percent or higher.
Instead, unemployment fell to 13.3 percent.
The report attributed the improvements to "a limited resumption of economic activity that had been curtailed in March and April due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it."
But the strong figures caught analysts off guard after weeks of reports showing spikes in jobless claims and reams of other mostly poor data on consumer confidence and business investment.
The Labor Department's weekly jobless claims report on Thursday showed another 1.9 million people applied for unemployment benefits last week, taking the total to more than 42 million in the wake of coronavirus shutdowns.
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