Wall Street plunges after shock jobs data

Wall Street markets plunged on Friday following a shocking report relating to job data throughout the United States.

On Friday, the Associated Press (AP) reported that the S&P 500 saw a 1.6 percent drop in early trading, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average saw a decline of 1.2 percent of 481 points by 9:35 a.m. EST. The Nasdaq composite saw a drop of 2.6 percent, the AP said.

A new report on job data showed that hiring throughout the U.S. declined in July “much more than economists expected,” prompting concern and fear among different markets, according to the AP.

The report from the Labor Department released on Friday showed U.S. employers added 114,000 jobs, a sharp drop from the 179,000 jobs posted in June.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate rose to 4.3 percent, up from 4.1 percent in June, for the highest level since October 2021. The number of jobless Americans also increased by 352,000.

The Labor Department reports comes after data released from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Thursday showed unemployment claims for the week ending on July 27 reached 249,000, which represented the highest number for this metric in the past year.

The data on Thursday also showed that the number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits for the week ending on July 20 reached 1.88 million, a rise of 33,000 from the previous week. The four-week average of those collecting unemployment benefits reached 1,857,000, which is the highest level since December 2021, the AP said.

This is a developing story that will be updated as more information becomes available.