Oil slips after job report, $700B bailout

Investors bet down the price for crude early in the day when the U.S. Department of Labor reported that employers slashed payrolls in September by the greatest amount in more than five years, but got back into the market when Wells Fargo Co. stepped in to buy Wachovia Corp. for $15.1 billion.

Labor Department figures showed that payrolls shrank by 159,000, more than the 100,000 economists predicted. The nation's unemployment rate remained flat at 6.1 percent, as expected.

And few believed that the unprecedented bailout package, passed early in the afternoon, would rekindle the global appetite for energy any time soon.

"I don't think it will be capable of putting a floor under oil prices," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates.

Light, sweet crude for November delivery fell 9 cents to settle at $93.88 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

On Thursday, prices closed at their lowest level in two weeks, tumbling below $94 a barrel on doubts that a revamped bailout plan will be enough to avoid a protracted economic slump. Settling at $93.97 a barrel, the price was the lowest since Sept. 16.

Ritterbusch noted demand deterioration is not only intact, "it's been accentuated by this financial rescue effort and the subprime loan issues."

November Brent crude fell 31 cents to settle at $90.25 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly approved a sweetened bailout plan Wednesday after House lawmakers stunned investors earlier in the week by rejecting it.