Dollar Slips As Unemployment Hits 25-year High

NEW YORK (AP) — The dollar slipped against the euro and the pound but rose against the yen Friday after a report showed that the nation's unemployment rate jumped to its highest level in nearly 25 years.

The 16-nation euro inched up to $1.3481 in late New York trading from $1.3446 Thursday, while the British pound rose to $1.4817 from $1.4712.

The dollar rose to 100.28 Japanese yen from 99.64 yen.

The unemployment rate jumped to 8.5 percent in March, the highest since late 1983, as a wide swath of employers eliminated 663,000 jobs, the Labor Department said Friday.

The economy has shed a total of 5.1 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. Nearly two-thirds of the losses have come in the last five months.

Stocks overlooked the unemployment data and the Dow Jones industrial average ended above 8,000 for the first time in nearly two months, logging its fourth straight week of gains.

Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the Fed was "extremely uncomfortable" about last year's bailouts of big financial companies, but that the central bank's strategy to ease the financial crisis is working.