TORONTO – The Toronto stock market headed for a higher open Friday as Canadian employment during January breezed past expectations.

Statistics Canada said the economy created 29,400 jobs.

Economists had been looking for the Canadian economy to crank out about 20,000 jobs last month after shedding 44,000 jobs in December.

The Canadian dollar moved up 0.47 of a cent to 90.8 cents US

U.S. markets were in for a generally weak open after the U.S. Labor Department reported that 113,00 jobs were created in January against the approximately 180,000 that had been expected.

Still, more people began looking for work in January, and some of the jobless were hired, reducing the unemployment rate to 6.6 per cent. That’s the lowest since October 2008.

The Dow Jones industrial futures were 30 points lower to 15,519, the Nasdaq futures moved up 10 points to 3,497 while the S&P 500 futures lost 1.75 points to 1,759.

The weak U.S. jobs performance last month followed a meagre gain of 74,000 American jobs during December that was largely blamed on the weather.

The January U.S. employment report has been seen as especially key as markets have seen much volatility in recent weeks on worries about indications of slowing manufacturing in China and the U.S.

Emerging economies have also been a worry because markets in those countries have been hit by the Federal Reserve’s program of cutting back on its key stimulus measure of massive bond buying. That move kept long long-term rates and encouraged a flood of cheap money into emerging markets.

But the Fed has moved twice in the past two months to cut back on those asset purchases, down a total of $20 billion to $65 billion a month, and the markets now have to deal with an outflow of funds.

The TSX is down slightly for the year to date but it has been a different story for U.S. indexes, which were a prime beneficiary of Fed stimulus over the last few years. The S&P 500 is down over four per cent after charging ahead over 30 per cent during 2013.

In corporate news, there was major acquisition activity in the oilpatch. Calgary-based Baytex Energy Corp. (TSX:BTE) is expanding into the lucrative Eagle Ford oil shale development in Texas through a $2.6-billion acquisition of Aurora Oil & Gas Ltd.

Aerospace manufacturer Heroux-Devtek Inc. (TSX:HRX) posted net income of $2.6 million or eight cents a share, missing estimates by a penny.

Domtar Corp. (TSX:UFS) says it had US$65 million of net income in the fourth quarter, up from US$19 million a year earlier. On an adjusted basis, its Domtar $2.09 per share, well above analyst estimates of $1.53 per share.

On the commodity markets, March crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange was 40 cents lower to US$97.44 a barrel.

March copper moved ahead two cents to US$3.24 a pound while April bullion gained $12.30 to US$1,269.50 an ounce.

European bourses were higher as London’s FTSE 100 index, Frankfurt’s DAX and the Paris CAC 40 were up about 0.25 per cent.

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index surged 2.2 per cent and China’s Shanghai Composite, which reopened after a long Lunar New Year holiday, rose 0.6 per cent.