Further gloom on the US jobs front failed to keep global equity markets from ending the week with a flourish as hopes intensified for a speedy passage of President Obama’s economic stimulus package.
US non-farm payrolls fell by 598,000 last month - the biggest drop since December 1974 - taking the jobless rate up to 7.6 per cent, the highest for more than 16 years. January’s decline marked the first time since records started in 1939 that job cuts had exceeded half a million in three successive months.
