The Dow fell 124 points, wiping out its gains for the week.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Stocks dropped sharply today after the U.S. government reported that only 80,000 jobs were created in June, the third straight month of weak hiring.The Dow Jones industrial average fell 124.20 points to close at 12,772.47. The loss wiped out the Dow’s gain for the week.
The reluctance of U.S. employers to add jobs shows that the economy is still struggling three years after the recession officially ended. An average of just 75,000 jobs were created every month in the April-June quarter, far below the 226,000 created every month in the first three months of the year.
“It shows the U.S. economy is losing momentum,” said Sharon Stark, chief market strategist at the brokerage firm Sterne Agee. “It’s a sign of everyone waiting to see what’s next.”
In other trading on Wall Street, the Standard & Poor’s 500 slid 12.90 points, or 0.9 percent, to 1,354.68 and the Nasdaq composite fell 38.79 points, or 1.3 percent, to 2,937.33.