Source: The Canadian Press

North American markets headed for a strong open Friday as U.S. jobs data blew past expectations.

The U.S. Labour Department reported that the economy shed a total of 54,000 jobs last month, due largely to the termination of temporary government census jobs.

However, investors were particularly pleased to see that the private sector created 67,000 jobs last month, much higher than the 40,000 or so that analysts expected.

The jobless rate edged up 0.1 of a percentage point to 9.6%.

U.S. futures ran sharply higher following the jobs report with the Dow Jones industrial futures jumping 102 points to 10,411, the Nasdaq futures rose 17.25 points to 1,854.5 and the S&P 500 futures gained 9.6 points to 1,099.2.

The Canadian jobs report for August comes out next Friday.

The Toronto stock market could find added lift from the mining sector Friday in the wake of a major deal in the gold sector.

Goldcorp Inc. (TSX:G) and Andean Resources announced a deal early Friday under which Goldcorp will acquire Andean for about C$3.6 billion. Andean’s main asset is the Cerro Negro gold project in Argentina, estimated to contain 2.1 million ounces of gold and 20.6 million ounces of silver.

The Canadian dollar was ahead 0.62 of a cent to 95.54 cents US.

Commodity prices picked up following the jobs report with the October crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange up 20 cents to US$75.22 a barrel.

The December copper contract on the Nymex added one cent to US$3.51 a pound.

But gold prices weakened as the December gold contract fell $7 to US$1,246.40 an ounce.

Sentiment in the markets has improved over the last couple of days after a run of strong economic data from around the world, particularly out of the U.S. and that has helped shore up stocks.

The TSX ended Thursday ahead 107 points to a three-and-a-half month high.

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 stock index rose 0.6% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 0.5%.

London’s FTSE 100 index was ahead 0.43%, Frankfurt’s DAX gained 0.29% while the Paris CAC 40 was up 0.5%.

In other corporate news, remarks by Dubai’s police chief suggest a tough line in talks with BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. (TSX:RIM). Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim says that worries about spying by the U.S. and Israel spurred plans to sharply limit BlackBerry services in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE plans to block BlackBerry e-mail, messaging and Web services Oct. 11 unless authorities can gain access to the encrypted data traffic — a demand by other countries warning of possible bans including India.