Europe shares hit day's low after U.S. payroll data

LONDON, July 2 (Reuters) - European shares extended losses in afternoon session on Thursday after U.S. non-farm payrolls data showed employers cut more jobs than expected. At 1238 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was down 1.7 percent at 851.24 points after hitting a session low of 850.28. U.S. employers cut 467,000 jobs in June, far more than expected, while the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, the government said on Thursday in a report that showed a labour market continuing to struggle with a deep recession.

The June job losses were more than 100,000 greater than the 363,000 consensus of Wall Street economists polled by Reuters and broke a four-month trend of moderation in job losses. [ID:nN01210643]

The European Central Bank kept euro zone interest rates at 1.0 percent on Thursday, and markets expect it to hold them at the all-time low for much of next year to help repair the region's economy. The decision had been seen as a near certainty. [ID:nL2512532]

Futures for the Dow Jones DJc1, S&P 500 SPc1 and Nasdaq NDc1 were down between 0.6 and 1.4 percent. (Reporting by Brian Gorman)