国际英语新闻:U.S. stocks slide following June jobs data

NEW YORK, July 6 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks slid on Friday after the government's latest report showed the jobs market was still struggling three years after the recession.

When the market closed, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 124.20 points, or 0.96 percent, to settle at 12,772.47, after plunging as much as 193 points in earlier session.

The Standard & Poor's 500 dropped 12.90 points, or 0.94 percent, to 1,354.68, with all its 10 big-cap sectors ending in the red. The Nasdaq Composite Index slid 38.79 points, or 1.30 percent, to 2,937.33.

Friday's slide after the Labor Department reported the U.S. economy added only 80,000 jobs in June, keeping the unemployment rate unchanged at 8.2 percent. The report marked the third straight month of weak hiring, an indisputable evidence that the U.S. economy was losing steam.

In the April-to-June quarter, the economy added an average of just 75,000 jobs a month, about one-third of 226,000 a month created in the first quarter, far fewer to knock down the lofty unemployment rate.

There were signs that the weak jobs market has already taken a toll on personal spending, which accounted for more than 70 percent of the country's economy.

After Friday's losses, both the blue-chip Dow and the broader S& P 500 turned negative for the week while the tech-heavy Nasdaq still managed a fifth straight weekly gain.