Wall Street stocks dropped further into the red on Friday following weaker than expected US jobs data, with the Nasdaq index falling as much as three percent.
The US economy added 114,000 jobs last month, down from June’s revised 179,000 figure, while the jobless rate rose to 4.3 percent, the highest level since October 2021.
The new data come on the heels of downcast manufacturing data Thursday that sent shares lower, stoking recession fears.
At around 11:30 am in New York (1530 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 2.0 percent at 39,538.09.
The broad-based S&P 500 declined 2.2 percent to 5,329.32, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index pared some of its losses from earlier in the day to trade down 2.6 percent at 16,754.46.
“The good news is that the July jobs report is supportive of imminent Fed interest rate cuts,” said Jason Schenker of Prestige Economics.
“The bad news is that this is a weak jobs report, and the trends in slowing payrolls and the rise in the unemployment rate are worrisome.”
Intel shares were trading more than 27 percent lower after it announced it would cut more than 15 percent of its workforce while reporting a $1.6 billion quarterly loss.
Among other companies reporting earnings, Amazon was down 9.3 percent, while Apple rose 2.2 percent.
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