North American stock markets are expected open lower Thursday ahead of a key U.S. jobs report for April to be released Friday.

Economists are forecasting an increase of 165,000 non-farm payroll jobs for the U.S. Labor Department’s April jobs report.

In today’s economic news, the productivity-growth rate of U.S. workers accelerated in the first three months of 2004 even as employers boosted hiring.

Non-farm business productivity grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.5% from January through March, up from a 2.5% rate during the final three months of 2003, the Labor Department said today. In year-on-year terms, the increase was 5.4%. The numbers matched Wall Street’s expectations.

In a separate release, the U.S. Labor Department said the number of U.S. workers filing first-time applications for unemployment benefits fell to a three-and-a-half-year low last week, indicating the job-market recovery is gaining speed.

Initial jobless claims declined by a larger-than-expected 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted level of 315,000 in the week that ended May 1. That marked the lowest level since the week before the 2000 presidential election. The four-week average dwindled to a four-week low of 343,250.

Economists had forecast claims to decline by just 3,000 to 335,000.

North of the border, Statistics Canada reported that overall construction intentions fell in March as a plunge in the value of building permits for non-residential projects far offset a gain in housing projects.

StatsCan said builders took out $4.2 billion in building permits, down 4.2% from February.


In this morning’s earnings news, Alcan Inc. reported solid first quarter profits as the Montreal company’s acquisition of French metals producer Pechiney helped nearly double its sales. Alcan said it earned US$106 million or US29¢ a share for the three months ended March 31. That compared with a loss of US$27 million or US9¢ a share for the same 2003 period.


European markets are lower following the Bank of England’s decision to raise its benchmark interest rate to 4.25% – its third increase in six months.

The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee announced an increase of 0.25 percentage points in the base rate.

The European Central Bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 2%.

At midday, London’s FTSE 100 is off 27.7 points to 4,541.8. Frankfurt’s DAX 30 has dropped 1.43%, while the Paris CAC 40 is down 1.29%.

Overnight in Asia, Japan’s benchmark stock index fell as investors back from a five-day break sold shares in automakers and other exporters. The Nikkei fell 190.45 points, or 1.62%, to end at 11,571.34.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index rose 59.85 points to finish at 12,010.31.

On Wednesday, the S&P/TSX composite index ended 1.45 points higher at 8,457.30 helped by strength in the metals and mining sector.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average slipped 6.25 points to 10,310.95, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index gained 6.78 points to 1,957.26.