NEW YORK—The stock market found little to celebrate heading into the long holiday weekend.

Major stock indexes fell more than 2.6 percent Thursday, pushing the Dow Jones industrials to their lowest level in six weeks, after the government said the unemployment rate hit a 26-year high and employers cut far more jobs than expected.

The data was especially disappointing since it broke a trend of four straight months of improvement in job losses. The report—one of the most closely watched gauges of the economy’s health—delivered the latest blow to the market’s already wanin...

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