Stock futures added to gains on Friday after data showed employers continued to slash jobs, pushing the unemployment rate to 8.5 percent, although the numbers were not as dire as some in the market had feared.

It gives the market a sense that we dodged a bullet in the very, very near term. It's positive in that it wasn't a blowout number of more than 750,000, said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Equity Markets in Jersey City, New Jersey. All the indexes are higher because the market is breathing a sigh of relief because it wasn't a blowout of market psychology.

March U.S. payrolls fell by 663,000, government data showed.

S&P 500 futures rose 5.20 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures were up 42 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures added 11.00 points.

(Reporting by Leah Schnurr and Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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