Oil rises as U.S. jobs data hits dollar

By Edward McAllister

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil rose slightly on Friday as the dollar slumped following bleak employment data in the United States, the world's top energy consumer.

U.S. crude settled up 27 cents to $61.04 a barrel off earlier highs of $62.82 a barrel. London Brent crude for December settled down 8 cents at $57.35 a barrel.

Despite Friday's gains, prices are down nearly ten percent this week, having fallen $6.77.

Oil prices have dived nearly 60 percent from record highs of over $147 dollars per barrel in July, as the global economic crisis has hit the wider economy, shrinking demand in major consumer nations.

The U.S. dollar on Friday eased against a basket of currencies after government data showed U.S. employers cut payrolls by 240,000 in October. In addition, data showed September registered the biggest monthly loss in jobs in nearly seven years.

The Labour Department said the U.S. unemployment rate shot up to 6.5 percent from 6.1 percent in September, the highest since March 1994. Wall Street economists had previously estimated that 200,000 U.S. jobs had been lost in October.

"Crude oil futures, like the stock market, are hanging in there. People came in today amid worries that the jobless data would crush the markets, but they haven't," said Andy Lebow, broker at MF Global, New York.

"But despite that, the data looks pretty downbeat. The crude oil market has to look at the fact that we're losing jobs and that ultimately will have an impact on petroleum demand."