New York, Apr 10 (IANS): US stocks tumbled Monday as investors came back from a weekend holiday and finally got a chance to react to Friday's jobs data, Xinhua reported.

The Labor Department announced Friday that non-farm payrolls rose by 120,000 in March, only as half as market previously expected.

The unemployment rate fell to 8.2 percent from 8.3 percent in the previous month, beating expectations of an unchanged reading and marking the lowest rate seen since January 2009.

However, many investors believed that the decline was not because the job market was getting better, but rather because more people gave up searching for jobs.

The report came as investors expected more evidence to prove a momentum in the economic recovery. However, the market was disappointed to see hiring slowed in March, interrupting the strongest stretch of job growth since the Great Recession.

In midday trading, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 138.12 points, or 1.06 percent, at 12,922.02. The Standard & Poor's 500 was down 17.06 points, or 1.22 percent, to 1,381.02. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 34.51 points, or 1.12 percent, to 3,045.99.