us stocks were mostly higher on friday as the sp 500 index struggled to avert a third straight loss following the release of the labor departments june nonfarm payrolls report which showed the pace of job creation slowed last month while wage growth remained robust on thursday the dow jones industrial average fell 366 points or 107 to 33922 the sp 500 declined 35 points or 079 to 4412 and the nasdaq composite dropped 113 points or 082 to 13679 us stocks were mostly higher on friday after data showed the us created 209000 new jobs in june the smallest increase in more than two and a half years the data were taken as a sign that the feds interestrate hikes were finally starting to cool the labor market but other details of the report suggested that the fed would still face pressure to continue raising interest rates see jobs report shows 209000 gain in june smallest increase since end of 2020 the latest jobs report shows an economy transitioning to a lower cruising speed said bernard baumohl chief global economist the economic outlook group there is still nothing to suggest a recession is near or that wage inflation is accelerating  the data painted a different picture of the state of the us labor market than a report on privatepayrolls growth from adp released on thursday which suggested that the private sector had created nearly 500000 jobs last month in assessing the markets reaction analysts noted that expectations for a fed rate hike in july were almost unchanged according to the cmes fedwatch tool which assessed the chance of a hike at more than 90 the yield on the 2year treasury bxtmubmusd02y dropped back below 5 and was down 4 basis points at 4969 the yield on the 10year treasury note was littlechanged at bxtmubmusd10y 4044 job growth slowed in june but the yeartodate increase of 278000 jobs per month is very strong versus history in fact the last time the us created this many jobs per month over a sixmonth period prepandemic was 1999 said ronald temple chief market strategist at lazard the feds tightening measures are working but with 165 open jobs per unemployed person wage growth of 04 per month and quit rates at 26 per month there is still work to do to put the inflation genie back in the bottle a hike in july remains my base case as does one additional hike thereafter analysts also focused on the pace of growth in average hourly wages which increased by 04 in june faster than economists had expected this suggests wage growth a key input for inflation is still too hot for the feds liking said steve wyett chief investment strategist at bok financial in emailed commentary the fed is not further behind on policy but they still have work to do he said us stocks have started the second half of 2023 with a pullback as all three major us equity indexes were headed for a weekly loss on friday despite its losses in recent days the sp 500 remains within striking distance of a 14month closing high from mondays session and the index has risen nearly 15 since the start of the year according to factset data this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal