Wall Street falls by over 1%

US stock indices declined on Friday as investors grew increasingly concerned about signs of a slowdown in the US labor market.

Government data revealed that the US economy added only 73,000 jobs in July, falling short of expectations for a gain of 100,000 jobs.

In addition, figures for May and June were sharply revised downward by a combined 258,000 jobs compared to initial estimates. June’s job gains were revised from 147,000 to just 14,000, while May’s figure was cut from 144,000 to 19,000.

The data also showed that the US unemployment rate rose to 4.2% in July from 4.1%, in line with market expectations.

As for market performance, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 1.1% (or 445 points) to 32,671 as of 16:59 GMT. The broader S&P 500 dropped 1.2% (or 74 points) to 6,262, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite declined 1.6% (or 340 points) to 20,777.