North American markets look set to open higher Friday morning, lifted by reports that showed the Canadian and U.S. economies added jobs in June.

Canada’s unemployment rate improved slightly to 6.7% in June from May’s 6.8%, Statistics Canada reported today.

Last month’s jobless rate was the lowest since June 2000.

The economy added a total of 14,000 new jobs last month. Roughly 52,000 full-time jobs were created in June but this was offset by the loss of 38,000 part-time jobs.

South of the border, the U.S. Labor Department said employers added 146,000 jobs to nonfarm payrolls in June and hiring in the previous two months was revised higher by 44,000 jobs. The unemployment rate fell to 5%. Economists expected the jobless rate to hold at 5.1%.

Later this morning, the U.S. Commerce Department is due to release the May wholesales inventories report at 10:00 ET. Economists look for a moderate 0.5% increase in wholesale inventories for May following a 0.8% increase in April.

In other economic news, crude-oil prices rose 86¢ to US$61.59 a barrel in early trading Friday after a wild ride Thursday spurred by the London attacks, Hurricane Dennis and the U.S. Energy Department’s weekly inventory report, which showed distillate stocks were 1.2% above their five-year average.

European markets regained their footing Friday, led by a rebound in London, a day after a series of deadly explosions rocked the city and rattled world markets. The FTSE 100 rose 1.2% at midday to 5221.30. Travel and insurance stocks were among early advancers today as the benchmark United Kingdom stock market index recovered most of the losses after the attacks on three subway stations and a bus. French and German markets also climbed.


Despite the attacks in London, North American markets actually managed to advance marginally Thursday, avoiding the drops seen on European exchanges.

In Toronto, the S&P/TSX composite index finished up 9.11 points, or 0.09%, to close at 10,121.00. Volume was 181 million shares.

The junior S&P/TSX venture exchange finished up 0.66, or 0.04%, to close 1,726.20.

In New York, the blue chip Dow Jones industrial average finished up 31.61, or 0.31%, to 10,302.29. The tech heavy Nasdaq composite index advanced 7.01, or 0.34%, to 2,075.66. The broad-based S&P 500 index closed up 2.93, or 0.25%, to 1,197.87.