The index of Britain's biggest blue-chip companies closed up 56.79 points at 5,976.77, having hit 5,871.57. In New York, the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were both 1.3pc higher in early afternoon trading at 1,352.57 and 12,741.82 respectively.
"Broadly speaking, employment has lagged further behind the cyclical recovery than other fundamentals and should be well supported after a strong year of profit gains," said Steven Weiting, an economist at Citigroup.
The anaemic pace of job creation has been the Achilles heel of America's recovery from its worst recession since the Second World War. Only 1.5m of the 8.5m jobs that went during the downturn have been replaced and some industries, such as construction, show no sign of creating any new employment soon.
April's hirings, which came largely in the retail and services industry, were not enough to prevent the unemployment rate climbing to 9pc in April, from 8.8pc in March, as signs of an improving market prompted more people to try to find work.
Kevin Logan, chief US economist at HSBC, cautioned that the figures were "certainly an improvement, but still less than the 300,000 or so jobs per month that would lead to a substantial decline in the unemployment rate".
The report underlined that the recovery in the jobs market is leaving many Americans behind. Almost 6m people, or just under 44pc of the total without work, have been without a job for more than six months.
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