By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Oil futures fell 3% Friday after the Labor Department reported that U.S. nonfarm payrolls plunged by 533,000 in November, adding to evidence that the economy is mired in a recession. Crude oil for January delivery fell $1.33, or 3%, to $42.35 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex. The contract hit an intraday low of $42.05. The steep fall in payrolls was the worst in 34 years and was well above economists' expectations of around 350,000. In addition, the unemployment rate rose from 6.5% in October to 6.7% in November, the highest jobless rate since October 1993. See Economic Report. Energy traders are worried that the global economic downturn will seriously dent demand for energy. On Thursday, crude tumbled $3.12, or 6.7%, at $43.67 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest closing level since January 2005. "Given the rate at which we are selling off, we shudder to think where crude oil prices will be when the boys from OPEC get together in twelve days time," said MF Global analyst Edward Meir. "There simply is very little buying coming into the market, as we saw yesterday, when prices hit four-year lows despite the cartel's attempt to jawbone prices higher," Meir said. Also on the Globex Friday, January reformulated gasoline fell 4 cents, or 4.3%, to 93 cents a gallon and January heating oil fell 3 cents to $1.48 a gallon. January natural gas futures tumbled 25 cents, or 4.2%, to $5.76 per million British thermal units.

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