The US dollar wobbled slightly against the euro on Friday as a grim US employment report signaled the US has entered a painful recession.
The euro was at US$1.2719 around 10pm GMT, up a notch from US$1.2713 late on Thursday.
Against the Japanese currency, the dollar rose to ¥98.21 from ¥97.72.
The US unemployment rate rose last month to its highest level since 1994, official data showed on Friday, with analysts forecasting it to increase further in US president-elect Barack Obama’s first year in office.
The US Labor Department said the jobless rate rose to 6.5 percent as the world’s largest economy shed 240,000 jobs amid the credit squeeze and downturn.
The US economy has lost jobs for 10 straight months this year and the Labor Department revised losses in August and September sharply higher.
“This was a worse than expected report that indicates we are in a pretty steep recession. Fourth-quarter growth could be quite ugly,” Joel Naroff at Naroff Economic Advisors said.
“The damage from the housing collapse and credit crunch is cumulating,” Naroff said, adding that the Federal Reserve policymakers do not meet again until after the jobs report for this month, on Dec. 16.
The dismal jobs news also increased speculation that the Fed would lower interest rates again, after slashing its key rate by a half-point, to 1 percent, on Oct. 29.
The jobs data underlined the challenge for Obama, who met on Friday with his economic team.
In late New York trading, the dollar rose to 1.1783 Swiss francs from SF1.1775 late on Thursday.
The pound edged up to US$1.5645 from US$1.5623.
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