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The U.S. dollar rose on Friday, posting its biggest weekly gain in two months against the euro after a government report showed that job losses in December were slightly lower than expected.

Traders sold dollars after a report of private sector jobs released on Wednesday showing a weakness in the U.S. labor market. < p> Many of these bets are pessimistic dollar reversed quickly, triggering a rise in the dollar, when the Labor Department reported 524,000 jobs lost last month, slightly better than Wall Street estimates a cut of 550,000

"The report of the December non-farm payrolls was unequivocally awful, but given that many investors were expecting even worse results, there was some relief after the announcement, "said Meny Gruman, an economist at CIBC World Markets in Toronto.

This" small glimmer of hope "he added, helped push up the dollar temporarily.

The Japanese yen also rose, with traders selling riskier bets in stocks, commodities and currencies with higher yields financed by the low rates of the Japanese unit.

Although report of the non-farm payroll was better than expected, still painted a bleak picture for the world's largest economy and said fears of a deep global recession. < / p> In the operations of the afternoon, the euro fell to 1.3416 dollars, after the employment data in the United States. Traded at 1.3431 at the close, falling 2.1% on the day. The single currency has fallen more than 3% against the dollar, the biggest weekly loss since the last week of October.

The index dó , in particular, a measure of the value of the dollar against six major currencies, rose 1.3% to 82,652. The dollar rose by 2% against the Swiss franc at 1.1147.

Against the yen, the dollar lost 0.8% to 90.36. The strength of the yen has pushed the euro down almost 3%, to 121.37.

Despite the rebound in the dollar, analysts noted that there are more than enough work for the report presage a bad sign for the U.S. economy and its currency.

"No matter how you look, these figures are depressing. The major payroll were slightly better than the consensus forecast, but we had a considerable jump in the unemployment rate, "said Matt Esteve, foreign exchange trader at Tempus Consulting in Washington, DC.

The unemployment rate of 7.2%, for example, was the highest in almost 16 years and the upward revision in November and October pushed the total job losses over the past four months to 1.9 million.

addition, the cuts in 2008 were 2.6 million, the largest decline in 63 years.

"The United States is in recesióny in previous recessions, the job cuts will be extended for at least 15 months, "said Kathy Lien, director of currency research at GFT Forex in New York.