Wall Street was flat on Friday afternoon, although that belied the swings each benchmark had experienced throughout the day as investors sought to comprehend what a robust jobs report would mean for the Federal Reserve's plans to hike interest rates.

The Labor Department's closely awaited data showed nonfarm payrolls rose by 372,000 jobs in June, higher than the estimated rise of 268,000 jobs, according to a Reuters poll of economists.

The report also showed the jobless rate remained near pre-pandemic lows at 3.6% and average hourly earnings rose 0.3%, after gaining 0.4% in May.

After a brutal first half of the year, U.S. stock markets started July on a solid footing as investors took relief from easing commodity prices and the Fed hinting at a more tempered program of rate hikes amid concerns of a recession.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq recorded their fourth successive higher close on Thursday, while the three main indexes were on track to post weekly gains.

Investors remain nervy though, sifting through each new piece of data and commentary from Fed governors to see how this might influence the U.S. central bank's plans to dramatically shift rates higher.

This resulted in see-saw trading on Friday, with all three main benchmarks experiencing periods in positive and negative territory.

"In the last couple of days, some people are starting to see signs that the inflation environment is looking better and that will give the Fed reason to back off the rate increases," said Derek Izuel, chief investment officer at Shelton Capital Management.

"The market suspects when you start to see truly strong signs of the Fed relaxing its path of rate increases and leading indicators picking up, we'll probably get a pretty good upward movement in the market, and no one wants to miss that.

"So we're going to have this volatility as we have all these false starts along the way."

With the earnings season around the corner, investors will focus on company forecasts as well as key inflation data expected next week to gauge the health of the economy.

Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic, until recently among the central bank's most dovish policymakers, said on Friday he "fully" supports another 75-basis-point rate rise later this month.

Speaking later on Friday, New York Federal Reserve President John Williams did not specify if he favors a half point or three-quarter point increase at the Fed's upcoming July meeting, but said that rising market interest rates were affecting the economy.

By 2:16 p.m. ET (1916 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 10.42 points, or 0.03%, to 31,394.97, the S&P 500 lost 1.32 points, or 0.03%, to 3,901.3 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.69 points, or 0.02%, to 11,618.66.

Levi Strauss rose 1% after the company's second-quarter results beat estimates, helped by strong demand for its denim jeans and jackets.

Twitter Inc fell 4.5% after a report said Elon Musk's deal to buy the social media company is in "serious jeopardy."

GameStop Corp tumbled 5.2% after the video game retailer said it had terminated the employment of Chief Financial Officer Michael Recupero.