Dollar rises on European concerns, job data

The U.S. dollar rose against major currencies in late New York trading on Friday as investors' concerns about the European debt crisis continued to weigh on the euro and U.S. unemployment rate slightly fell to 9 percent in October. The meeting of the Group of 20 ended Friday with little progress made on helping European sovereign debt crisis. The euro lost 0.3 percent against the dollar on Friday. The euro was still under pressure after the European Central Bank unexpectedly cut key interest rate by 25 basis points to 1.25 percent on Thursday. Also, investors' concerns about the Greek debt crisis weighed on the shared currency, even after the government abandoned the referendum on the bailout package. The U.S. Labor Department said 80,000 jobs were added in October, and the unemployment rate dropped slightly to 9 percent from 9.1 percent. However, the result disappointed investors who had been expecting an increase of 90,000 jobs. In late Friday trading, the dollar bought 78.16 Japanese yen, comparing with 78.09 from late Thursday. The euro fell to 1.3778 dollars from 1.3834. The British pound also fell to 1.6040 dollars from 1.6041. The dollar rose from 0.8784 Swiss francs to 0.8859, and also rose to 1. 0173 Canadian dollars from 1.0079.