NEW YORK - US STOCKS opened modestly lower Friday after official data showed the economy lost more than a half million jobs in November, sending unemployment to a 15-year high, amid a deepening recession.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 72.00 points (0.86 per cent) to 8,304.24 in opening trade and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite dropped 12.44 points (0.86 per cent) to 1,433.12.

The broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 sank 8.23 points (0.97 per cent) to 836.99.

The action came after a steep late-day selloff on Thursday following a series of big job-slashing announcements that stoked anxiety ahead of the November jobs report. The Dow slid 2.51 per cent, the Nasdaq composite 3.14 per cent and the S&P 500 2.92 per cent.

Shares on Wall Street extended the losses on Friday after the Labour Department reported the US economy lost a shocking 533,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate jumped to 6.7 per cent.

The number of job losses was much higher than the 325,000 expected by private forecasters, but the jobless rate was slightly better than the consensus estimate of 6.8 per cent.

Not only was the number of job losses higher than expected, but the Labour Department revised sharply higher the number of jobs lost in October and September.

'There is no sugar-coating this data,' analysts at Briefing.com said. 'It is bad news that will weigh heavily on consumer sentiment and will serve to increase concerns about the depth and length of the current slowdown.' -- AFP