1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar soars on upbeat nonfarm payrolls

The U.S. dollar rose against most major currencies Friday as nonfarm payroll report from the country came out better than expected.

U.S. total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 280,000 in May, well above market consensus of 220,000, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 5.5 percent, the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday.

In May, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 8 cents to 24.96 U.S. dollars. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.3 percent.

Analysts said the positive jobs data showed sound recovery of U. S. labor market, triggering market expectations that the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates in September.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six other major currencies, was up 0.92 percent to 96.337.

Meanwhile, the euro was down over 1 percent against the U.S. dollar as Greek debt crisis intensified.

Athens failed to repay a 300 million euros (333 million U.S. dollars) loan installment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Friday. On Thursday, the central bank of Greece formally requested the IMF to "bundle" its four payments due to the IMF this month amounting to approximately 1.5 billion euros (about 1.67 billion U. S. dollars) into one.

In late New York trading, the euro dropped to 1.1121 dollars from 1.1247 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound declined to 1.5278 dollars from 1.5370 dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar went down to 0.7621 U.S. dollar from 0.7685 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 125.60 Japanese yen, higher than 124.36 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar rose to 0.9391 Swiss franc from 0.9328 Swiss franc, but it decreased to 1.2444 Canadian dollars from 1.2492 Canadian dollars. Endite