The stock market has been volatile for weeks on concern that China’s economy is slowing more rapidly than previously thought. “The Fed can declare victory with regard to getting employment back…and abandon the zero-interest-rate policy“, Mr. Dunigan added. Analysts are forecasting that employers produced a healthy increase of 220,000 jobs and that the unemployment rate fell to 5.2 percent.

“It’s interesting and disappointing that today’s data didn’t provide us with that ‘Ah-ha!’ clarity that everyone is seeking”, said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors.

US stock futures pointed to a 1% opening loss for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a… The Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 0.1 percent to 1,951.13.

The Fed has been moving ever closer to a rate hike, but its calculus has been changed by the recent worldwide global turbulence, which has created a good deal of market instability at the same time it is readying to raise rates for the first time since 2006.

If the index closes near current levels, it would push its weekly loss to about 3.4 per cent, and mark the sixth decline of one per cent or more over the past 12 days, Bloomberg reports.

The declines complete a choppy week of trading for stocks around the globe as fears about a slowdown in China continue to rattle investors who worry that problems in the world’s second-largest economy will spill over into other economies.

The number of full-time jobs in the USA also surpassed its 2007 pre-recession peak, Bloomberg says. A report this week showed robust growth in the service industry. USA markets will be closed Monday in observance of the holiday.

European stocks opened sharply lower.

Among individual stocks, Netflix continued its slide Friday.

Bond prices edged up after the jobs report, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note down to 2.13 percent from 2.16 percent on Thursday.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 1.7 percent at 6,092 while Germany’s DAX fell 1.9 percent to 10,117. The euro was 0.1 percent lower at $1.1116 against $1.1146 before the data. It was weak against the Japanese yen, though, trading 0.8 percent lower at 119.18 yen.

Dow futures dropped over 275 points after the report’s release, sending an early warning sign that stocks could be in for a slide on Friday.