Europe, in particular, is struggling to control a debt crisis that began in its smaller countries and now threatens the much bigger economies of Italy and Spain. A flurry of phone calls among European leaders led to announcements in Italy and elsewhere that reforms would be speeded up, though worries remain widespread that markets could resume their sharp fall if concrete steps to give financial support to Italy and Spain are not taken next week.

Those who have been waiting for the United States economy to move into high gear took little comfort in Friday’s jobs report from the Labor Department, even though it was better than the previous months, whose job gains were revised slightly upward to 46,000 in June and 53,000 in May.

Companies added 154,000 jobs in July, but state and local governments continued to backslide, shedding 39,000 jobs. The federal government added 2,000 jobs. The unemployment rate slipped a notch to 9.1 percent, from 9.2 percent in June, but that was mainly because some people had simply given up looking for work.

The news tempered, but did not silence, talk of a double-dip recession. “It gives us some temporary relief,” said Nigel Gault, chief United States economist at IHS Global Insight. “I suspect, though, that relief will probably not last too long as people refocus on what they think will happen in the future.”