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By STAN CHOE, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Stock markets worldwide are careening even lower Friday after China matched President Donald Trump’s big raise in tariffs in an escalating trade war. Not even a better-than-expected report on the U.S. job market, which is usually the economic highlight of each month, was enough to stop the slide.

The S&P 500 was down 3.8% in midday trading, after earlier dropping more than 5%, following its worst day since COVID wrecked the global economy in 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,349 points, or 3.3%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 3.8% lower.

So far there are few, if any, winners in financial markets from the trade war. European stocks saw some of the day’s biggest losses, with indexes sinking roughly 4%. The price of crude oil tumbled to its lowest level since 2021. Other basic building blocks for economic growth, such as copper, also saw prices slide on worries the trade war will weaken the global economy. read more

By PAUL WISEMAN and ANNE D’INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers added a surprising 228,000 jobs last month, showing that the American labor market was in solid shape as President Donald Trump embarked on a risky trade war with the rest of the world. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2%.

The hiring numbers were up from 117,000 in February and were nearly double the 130,000 that economists had expected. Labor Department revisions shaved 48,000 jobs off January and February payrolls.

Workers’ average hourly earnings rose 0.3% from February, about what economists had expected. Compared to a year earlier, hourly pay was up 3.8%, a bit lower than the 4% that had been forecast and nearing the 3.5% year-over-year gains that are seen as consistent with the Federal Reserve’s 2% annual inflation target.

Healthcare companies added almost 54,000 jobs and restaurants and bars nearly 30,000 as the job market bounced back from bitter winter weather in January and February. The federal government lost 4,000, a sign that Elon Musk’s purge of the federal workforce may only be starting to show up in the data. read more