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The pace of growth in the U.S. services sector accelerated in January to its highest level in nearly a year as new orders and employment jumped, an industry report showed on Friday.

The Institute for Supply Management said its services index rose to 56.8 last month from a revised 53.0 in December. It was the highest level since February 2011.

Economists had expected the index to hold steady at 53.0, according to a Reuters survey. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector.

U.S. stocks rose 1 percent heading into the data, while Treasuries yields hit session highs following its release and the euro extended losses against the dollar.

The new orders index climbed to 59.4 from 54.6, though the prices paid measure edged up to 63.5 from 62.0

Employment in the vast services sector was robust, rising to the highest level in six years at 57.4 from 49.8 and adding to signals of improvement in the labor market. The sector accounts for more than two-thirds of economic activity in the United States Business Card Holders.

The overall U.S. unemployment rate fell to close to a three-year low in January, separate data showed earlier on Friday, as the economy created jobs at the fastest pace in nine months.

Anticipation for a third round of stimulus, or quantitative easing, from the Federal Reserve had picked up after the Fed left the door open to more stimulus at its most recent meeting, the jobs report muted those expectations.

Economic growth is expected to back off in early 2012 from the 2.8 percent rate of growth in the fourth quarter, though there are signs of underlying momentum.

Global service sector data on Friday was more mixed and showed Europe’s economy probably picked up last month, while growth in Chinese service firms slowed sharply.

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Japan’s industrial production rebounded 4 percent in December from November and household spending increased for a second month, suggesting the still-weak economy is gaining some steam after last year’s tsunami disaster and flooding in Thailand that disrupted manufacturers’ supply chains.

Output of automobiles, cell phones and semiconductors drove the gains last month after production fell 2.7 percent in November. Manufacturers project further production increases in January and February, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Tuesday.

But Japan’s unemployment rate edged up to 4.6 percent and Junko Nishioka, economist at RBS Japan Securities, cautioned that the economic outlook was “mixed.”

While she was heartened by the 0.5 percent uptick in family spending, Nishioka said prospects for Japan’s vital manufacturing sector remained tentative amid weak export demand short term personal loans.

“The pace of recovery will be slow,” she said. “So far, we’re seeing some recovery in the auto sector and electronic components, but still it’s still not enough to compensate for the gap recorded after the March disaster and the Thai flooding.”

The factory data showed that shipments grew 4.5 percent and inventories fell 2.9 percent, both healthy indicators. Broadly speaking, production was led by strength in the electronics, automobile and general machinery sectors, the report showed.

Looking ahead, manufacturers predicted that industrial output would rise 2.5 percent in January and another 1.2 percent in February, according to a METI survey.

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An Iraqi police official says gunmen have attacked the house of a police officer near the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk, killing one of his guards.

Kirkuk’s police commander Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir says the officer was unharmed in Saturday’s attack in the predominantly Sunni town of Hawija, a former insurgent stronghold located 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Baghdad.

Suspected Sunni insurgents have frequently targeted Iraqi security forces to undermine the confidence in the Shiite-dominated government and its efforts to protect people from violence without American backup payday loans in one hour.

Attacks have surged amid an escalating political crisis in Iraq. At least 160 people have been killed since the beginning of the year, raising fears of civil war a month after U.S. soldiers left.

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Investors added about $1 billion to U.S. municipal bond mutual funds in the week that ended Dec. 7, the most since March 2010, as 10-year benchmark yields fell to the lowest since September.

The funds have attracted about $3 billion since mid-October, according to Lipper US Fund Flows data. Yields on top-rated 10-year municipals fell to 2.005 Thursday, from a two-month high of about 2.58 percent on Oct. 13, according to Bloomberg Valuation data. Thursday’s benchmark tax-free yield was just above the 2.003 percent interest rate on Sept. 23, the lowest since the index began in January 2009.

Investors are adding cash to municipal funds to tap into the rally in the $3.7 trillion market and to boost assets they deem relatively safe before month-end, said Matt Fabian, managing director of Concord, Mass.-based Municipal Market Advisors, in a telephone interview.

“It’s probably partly the rally and partly just allocations into year-end, getting portfolios ready for year-end to show a larger allocation of fixed income,” Fabian said.

Net additions in the past couple of months are a reversal from earlier in the year. Investors pulled more than $30 billion out of the funds from November 2010 to June as lingering strains from the recession fueled speculation that municipal defaults would jump.

In contrast with the decline in 10-year yields, interest rates on top-rated tax-exempts maturing in 30 years increased in the past two months to 3.85 percent Thursday, according to Bloomberg data. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

The yield on the longer-maturity index was 185 basis points above that on the 10-year gauge yesterday, the widest gap since at least January 2001, when the Bloomberg Valuation data began.

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A series of blasts in central Iraq apparently targeting street vendors and day laborers killed 10 people on Saturday, police officials said.

The first two bombs were planted in the early morning in a spot where day laborers gather in the mostly Sunni village of al-Zaidan, near the town of Abu Ghraib west of Baghdad. They killed seven people and wounded 11 others, the officials said.

Hours later, three bombs exploded near the kiosks of vendors selling CDs and military uniforms in central Baghdad, killing three people and wounding eight others.

Health officials at Abu Ghraib’s general hospital and at Ibin al-Nafis hospital in Baghdad confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they w not authorized to release the information.

Violence has ebbed across Iraq, but deadly bombings and shootings still occur almost daily as U.S. troops prepare to leave by the end of the year.

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Germany’s unemployment rate slipped to 6.5 percent in October, an improvement credited to seasonal factors.

The Federal Labor Agency said Wednesday that 2.737 million people were registered as jobless in Europe’s biggest economy last month _ 59,000 fewer than the previous month. The unadjusted jobless rate was down from 6.6 percent in October.

However, the agency says that the seasonally adjusted jobless rate ticked up to 7 percent from 6.9 percent. In adjusted terms, the number of unemployed people increased by 10,000 following months of declines.

Germany’s economic growth has been losing steam lately amid clouds over the global economy and the eurozone debt crisis.

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Union leaders from Chrysler facilities around the country assembled in a Detroit suburb Monday expecting to hear details of a new four-year contract with the company. Instead, they were told to wait for a couple of days.

UAW spokeswoman Michele Martin said Monday that no agreement has been reached, and that bargaining will resume on Tuesday morning. Neither the union nor the company would say what’s holding up a deal.

Union leaders from outside Detroit were told at the meeting to stay in town for another meeting that’s scheduled for Wednesday, a sign that both sides are close to an agreement. But it was unusual for the UAW to hold the meeting on Monday without having a deal, and it indicates that the talks are snagged on money issues.

UAW President Bob King and Vice President General Holiefield had little to say to about 200 local leaders Monday at a regional UAW office in Warren, Mich., said one official who attended the meeting.

Neither King nor Holiefield talked about sticking points in the talks at Chrysler, the last of the Detroit automakers without an agreement with the union. The two spoke for a short time and said they were not ready to recommend a deal to the membership, said the official, who asked not to be identified because the meeting was private.

“The introductions were longer than the meeting,” the official said.

Workers at General Motors Co. approved a new contract late last month. Voting is under way at Ford Motor Co. At both companies, the union agreed to forego annual pay raises for most workers in favor of profit-sharing checks and signing bonuses. The companies held their labor costs steady but promised thousands of new union jobs.

Talks with the UAW are closely watched because they set the pay and benefits for 112,000 auto workers nationwide, and they set the bar for pay at auto parts suppliers and other manufacturers.

Bargaining continued with Chrysler through the weekend and into Monday morning over money issues, spokeswomen for both sides said. All the non-money issues have been settled for several days.

Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Chrysler and Italian automaker Fiat SpA, said Friday that the GM and Ford deals may be too rich for Chrysler. The company, unlike GM and Ford, lost money during the first half of the year.

Marchionne said he hopes a new deal can be reached without resorting to binding arbitration. Chrysler workers gave up the right to strike over wages under the terms of its 2009 government bailout. But either side in contract talks can take disputes to an arbitrator.

On Friday, the union and Chrysler were hung up on how many workers would be paid entry-level wages and the size of signing bonuses and profit-sharing checks, the local union official said.

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