US president Donald Trump is set to hold a press conference shortly, where he’s expected to celebrate the jobs figures.

You can follow that on our US live blog here:

US stocks have extended their gains, with the Dow now trading higher by 3%.

Global oil prices have climbed to three month highs above $40 a barrel on Friday, after reports emerged that members of the Opec oil cartel will agree to extend their historic oil production cuts.

The world’s largest oil producers are expected to sign off the agreement this weekend to continue holding back 9.7 million barrels of oil a day through the summer to prevent a market collapse due to the coronavirus crisis.

The international oil price benchmark, Brent crude, climbed by $2.40, or 6%, to $42.39 a barrel on Friday afternoon. US oil prices rose $2.05, or almost 5.5%, to $39.46 a barrel.

The original deal has helped oil prices to climb well above the lows seen in April when Brent crude fell to 21 year lows of $16 a barrel, and US prices turned negative for the first time.

Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of the Opec cartel, and Russia have reportedly agreed to extend the deal to at least the end of July while Riyadh continues to push for the cuts to remain in place through August.

The meeting is scheduled to take place via webinar on Saturday.

Bjornar Tonhaugen, the head of oil markets at Rystad Energy, said:

It now seems very likely that OPEC+ will meet tomorrow to hash out a deal to extend the current May-June deep cuts for one more month.

European stocks have hit session highs on the back of the US jobs data:

An interesting point by the former economic adviser to Joe Biden, about the sheer scale of the recovery needed to bounce back from the massive job losses so far:

Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at AvaTrade, says the US unemployment rate “mind-blowing number”:

The US unemployment rate has shocked everyone because the number was much lower than the market expectation. Speculators were whispering for 20%.

This a mind-blowing number and shows that the economy is improving. Things are not as bad as many thought. This data, if it is a true reflection of the economy, is likely to speed up the recovery for the US economy.

Covid-19’s devastating assault on the US economy waned in May as the unemployment rate dipped to 13.3% and the US added another 2.5m jobs.

The latest tally follows the loss of 20m jobs in April when unemployment hit 14.7%. In February the unemployment rate was just 3.5%.

A decade’s worth of gains made in the labor market since the last recession have been erased in just three months.

All 50 states have now begun easing quarantine restrictions and the pace of this unprecedented hollowing has now slowed as some have returned to work but uncertainties remain.

Weekly unemployment claims have plummeted from a frightening peak of 6.6m in April to 1.9m last week but Jason Reed, a professor of finance at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, said the numbers were still huge. He worried America is now witnessing a shift from temporary to permanent layoffs.

With the pandemic still spreading, the true scale of Covid-19’s impact on the US economy is yet to be determined. The headline figures do not show the loss of hours and income millions of people are experiencing or count many people who have been sidelined by the shutdown but have not yet claimed benefits.

You can read the full report here:

The surprise print on unemployment has been a massive boost for US futures with the Dow now up 2.3%.

Safe haven assets are also losing their allure.

Pantheon Macroeconomics’ chief economist reckons that the surprise surge could be due to how easy it was to rehire staff that were originally let go at the start of the pandemic:

Rail unions have threatened to strike over government plans for an “army” of volunteers at transport hubs to remind travellers to wear a face covering, my colleagues Helen Pidd and Gwyn Topham write.

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, announced the policy of using volunteers without consultation according to the RMT union, which condemned moves to put unpaid workers in “safety critical roles”.

Face coverings will be mandatory on public transport in England from 15 June to help stop the transmission of coronavirus as more people go back to work, the government announced on Thursday.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday, Shapps said passengers would also be encouraged to cover their face when entering bus and train stations with the help of volunteer “journey makers”.

The RMT general secretary, Mick Cash, said the Department for Transport had “done a backroom deal to recruit unpaid and unskilled workers on our railway without even so much as conversation with rail unions” and the union would consider a strike ballot.

Here’s how US futures are looking ahead of the jobs report:

• Dow Jones futures are up 1.29%
• S&P 500 futures are up 0.84%
• Nasdaq futures are up 0.17%

Markets are rallying ahead of the US non-farm payrolls report and unemployment rate expected at 13.30pm this afternoon.

We are expecting to see US unemployment creep towards 20%, but given optimism across markets it’s unclear whether those historic figures will knock stocks from their current course.

Conor Campbell, a financial analyst at SpreadEx, said:

The Dow Jones is set to join in with this jubilance later this afternoon, with the futures suggesting the index will strike its own 3-month peak of 26600 courtesy of a 330 point increase.

Standing in the Dow’s way is a nonfarm jobs report potentially set to reveal that another 7.75 million jobs were lost last month. This as the unemployment rate shoots up to a staggering 19.4%.

Wage growth, meanwhile is expected to pull back from 4.7% to 1% month-on-month, suggesting that more high-wage jobs vanished in May than in the low-wage wipe-out that hit in April.

Sky is reporting that Ryanair is joining IAG in a potential challenge to the UK government’s quarantining laws:

Emma Wall, head of investment analyis at Hargreaves Lansdown says the stock market rebound in recent weeks has been “extraordinary” but says it may be too soon to celebrate.

The rally in global markets from the lows of March have been welcomed by professional and individual investors alike. Quite a few funds are in positive territory year to date now, having clawed back the coronavirus-related losses. Certain sectors in particular have recovered well; many US and global funds are posting gains year to date.

This is an interesting juxtaposition with the 2008 global financial crisis when markets and funds took considerably longer to get back into the black.

There is some nervousness that the rally is too quick too soon, and another dip is on its way – particularly if you take heed of bond markets.

The issue is that while sentiment is improving, the fundamentals haven’t changed, she said. Most economies are still imposing restrictions, even if lockdowns are slowly being eased.

There is also political and social unrest growing globally, the incredibly important Black Live Matters movement has the potential to cause market volatility, as do the new rules imposed on Hong Kong.

In the short-term, investors should prepare for more market volatility. If bond markets are to be believed, we’re entering a period of very low growth and very low inflation - but equities disagree. As ever, a balanced and well-diversified portfolio is the best way to hedge your bets.

Tim Davie, the head of BBC Studios who turned down an offer to run the Premier League last year, has been appointed as the corporation’s next director general.

Davie, 53, who has responsibility for monetising brands from Top Gear to Doctor Who around the world, was considered the frontrunner to take over from Tony Hall.

Davie was selected by the BBC board from a shortlist of candidates that included Charlotte Moore, the BBC’s director of content, Will Lewis, the former chief executive of the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, and Doug Gurr, the head of Amazon’s UK and Ireland operations.

His appointment comes in spite of calls to appoint a woman to the most senior role at the BBC for the first time in its history.

A former Procter & Gamble and Pepsi marketer, Davie previously ran the BBC’s audio and music operation and acted as director general during the Savile crisis, before Lord Hall was appointed. Last year Davie turned down an offer to be chief executive of the Premier League.

Davie, who joined the BBC in 2005 as head of marketing, is the corporation’s top-paid executive, taking home £642,000 last year. He will have to take a significant pay cut; Hall received £475,000 in pay and benefits.

You can read more here:

Bentley has confirmed that it is aiming to cut 1,000 jobs through a voluntary redundancy scheme, shrinking its workforce by almost a quarter as it responds to the coronavirus pandemic.

The luxury carmaker warned that it cannot rule out future compulsory redundancies, as the pandemic cuts demand for cars.

Bentley, whose 4,200 workers are mainly based in Crewe, Cheshire, said it was already planning to restructure as it switches from internal combustion engine products towards hybrids that also contain battery-powered vehicles.

The job losses come a day after 2,000 redundancies were announced at sports car maker Aston Martin and car dealer Lookers. Sports car maker McLaren has also said it will cut 1,200 jobs.

Adrian Hallmark, Bentley’s chief executive, also warned that a no-deal Brexit could “compound the coronavirus disaster”, ahead of an end-of-month deadline to agree a deal or an extension beyond 31 December.

“My message to politicians is this: please don’t push us off a second cliff,” he told the Financial Times.

The UK arm of Victoria’s Secret has filed for protection from creditors, the Wall Street Journal (£) is reporting.

It says the company’s owner L Brands is using the “light touch administration” tool to block claims on its unpaid debts as it tried to weather the coronavirus crisis.

The move allows the company to keep running the businesses, with administrators’ consent.

The report says that it could eventually lead to the sale of the business.

Staggering flight statistic picked up by our reporter Joanna Partridge:

The comments from IAG chief Willie Walsh have done nothing to dampen appetite for the airline group’s shares.

IAG is up 11% and is the best performing stock on the FTSE 100.

It’s followed close behind by Carnival, despite having suspending all of its cruises in the US and Canada for 2020, according to Reuters.

It comes as all European stock markets extend their gains, with French and Italian leading the pack are rising more than 2% each.

The boss of British Airways-owner IAG has blamed the UK plans to quarantine arrivals for 14 days for having ‘torpedoed’ lans to start flying in July.

Speaking to Sky News, Willie Walsh confirmed he was speaking to to lawyers about challenging the UK’s quarantine rules.

While BA recently set out plans to cut up to 12,000 jobs to offset the worst impact of the pandemic, Walsh said on Friday that no final decision had yet been made on actual job losses.

Britain’s financial watchdog has launched 30 enforcement investigations into firms that have given bad advice to customers about transferring out of their defined benefit pension schemes, my colleague Mark Sweney writes.

The Financial Conduct Authority has banned financial advisers from getting paid only when a customer transfers a pension, known as contingent charging, which creates a bias for advisers to recommend a transfer.

The watchdog said the move to investigate 30 firms followed its latest review of the pension transfer market, which it has been monitoring since consumers were given the freedom in 2015 to move their pension pots between schemes or to withdraw their money.

Christopher Woolard, the interim chief executive of the FCA, said:

The proportion of customers who have been advised to transfer out of their defined benefit pension is unacceptably high.

While much of the advice we looked at was suitable, we are still finding too many cases in which transfers were not in the customer’s best interests.

The FCA also published a review of the British Steel pension scheme, where members have been “preyed on” by advisers getting about £6,000 per case they convinced to transfer out.

In a review of 192 cases of steel workers, 47% were found to have been given unsuitable advice and 32% had “information gaps”. The FCA, which has already written to almost 4,000 former scheme members advising them how to complain, intends to contact all members.

BBC economics editor Faisal Islam details the news that Richard Hughs will be taking over from Robert Chote as the head of the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Administrators of Neil Woodford’s failed flagship investment fund have announced the sale of “a significant portion” of the equity income fund’s remaining assets.

The sale will help it make another tranche of payments to investors who have been trapped in the fund for a year, having been suspended following a surge in redemptions last June.

Link Fund Solutions said in a letter this morning:

We are now able to confirm to investors in the Fund that we have reached agreement with Acacia Research Corporation (“Acacia”) for the sale of an agreed selection of up to 19 of the fund’s healthcare assets in return for up to £223.9m

Link said the sale could take up to six months to complete and was not able to confirm the exact dates and amount that would be paid out (it’s unlikely to the full amount of the sale, given that admin costs are shaved off).

Meanwhile, law firm Nelsons has confirmed it is now looking at a possible claim against Link for failing to deal with Woodford’s illiquidity issues sooner.

They’ve also claimed that to have received more than 300 enquiries from investors interested in suing Hargreaves Lansdown for promoting Woodford and its Equity Income Fund as ‘best buys’.

Worth noting that the Halifax house price data is far more optimistic than what we saw from Nationwide earlier this week.

( Nationwide’s data showed average prices tumbling 1.7% in May from the previous month, to £218,902. That was the biggest monthly fall since February 2009.)

Back to that dismal GfK consumer confidence data.

Joe Staton, GfK’s client strategy director, said:

Against a backdrop of falling house prices, soaring jobless claims, and with no sign of a rapid V-shaped bounce-back on the cards, consumers remain pessimistic about the state of their finances and the wider economic picture for the year to come.

He notes that the only “bright spark” is in the figures for major purchases (as in, expensive items), which is pointing to pent up demand by shoppers across the UK despite most shops remaining shut.

But looking at the next chart, there does seem to be some stabilisation following the sharp drop in March and April, and there may be hope that - barring a second peak in Covid-19 infections - that consumer sentiment will start to bounce back

Staton said:

As the lockdown eases, it will be interesting to see just how the consumer appetite for spending returns in a world of socially-distanced shopping and the seismic shift to online retailing – alongside worries of a fresh spike in COVID-19 cases as relaxations increase.

The euro surged yesterday after the ECB ramped up its coronavirus response by agreeing to inject an additional €600bn (£539.5bn) of emergency financial support into the Eurozone economy.

It’s meant that the currency has dominated peers including the pound, which is at its lowest level in over two months against the euro.

The pound has performed better against the greenback, with dollar weakness helping push the sterling to near three-month highs.