TOPWRAP 1-US job losses sour mood; euro data unlikely to soothe
* US job cuts dampen recovery hopes, dent stock markets
* Asian stocks trim losses after Wall St. slump
* China 2009 lending seen doubling Beijing's minimum target
* Euro zone service gauge, retail sales expected to dip (For more on the financial crisis, click [nCRISIS])
SINGAPORE, July 3 (Reuters) - Heavy job losses in the United States and Europe soured market sentiment, pointing to a long, slow recovery from the world's deepest recession in eight decades.
Friday's euro zone service sector surveys for June and retails sales for May are unlikely to cheer investors either, with both sets of data expected to show a deterioration from the previous month.
U.S. employers cut more jobs than expected in June, pushing the jobless rate to a 26-year peak of 9.5 percent, while unemployment in Europe in May rose to a 10-year high, Thursday's data showed, scuttling lingering hopes for a quick bounce. [ID:nN02549309]
Since the U.S. economy fell into recession in December 2007, it has lost 6.5 million non-farm jobs and the unemployment rate has nearly doubled. Europe's single currency area meanwhile has lost 3.4 million jobs since May 2008 and the jobless rate spiked to 9.5 percent.
World stock markets, which rallied in the second quarter on recovery hopes, slumped after the jobs data as investors found little evidence of a nascent sustainable upturn.
While manufacturing reports from around the world this week pointed to a bottoming of the global recession, economists said jobs and the buying power of consumers remained under threat.
An expected 0.1 percent drop in euro zone retail sales in May and a forecast pick-up in the pace of contraction in the single currency area's dominant service sector are set to add to evidence that the world economy is not yet out of the woods.
The results of the June services survey are due shortly before 0800 GMT, while the retail sales data are expected at 0900 GMT.
RESILIENT ASIA
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI closed 2.6 percent down, while the broad Standard & Poor's 500 gauge .SPX lost 2.9 percent. Government debt prices and the U.S. dollar rose, reflecting heightened risk aversion.
Japan's Nikkei average .N225 shed 1.4 percent on Friday, dragged down by a 6.3 percent slide in Seven & I Holdings (3382.T) after Japan's biggest retailer kicked off the earnings season with an unexpected drop in quarterly profit. Continued...
