New York/Hong Kong/London (CNN Business) Global markets and US stock futures retreated Thursday as investors turned their attention from the mammoth stimulus package working its way through Congress to a labor market report that could confirm that millions of Americans lost their jobs last week as the coronavirus pandemic shut down huge swaths of the economy.

Nikkei 225 N225 Shanghai Composite SHCOMP Hang Seng HSI European stocks posted early losses after most major indexes in Asia ended the session down. Japan'sdropped 4.5%, making it the worst performer in the region. Theshed 0.6% and Hong Kong'sgave up 1.2%.

FTSE 100 UKX DAX DAX CAC 40 CAC40 Theopened down 2.6% in London, while losses on Germany'sand France'sapproached 2%. Futures of Brent crude, the global benchmark, dropped by more than 3% to $26.54 as fears about oversupply and weaker demand caused by coronavirus continued to weigh on oil prices.

US stock futures pointed lower ahead of the release of US jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET, a report that will give investors their first sense of how much damage the pandemic is doing to the American labor market. The consensus estimate among economists is that 1 million people filed for unemployment benefits in the week ended March 21, which would be the highest ever recorded, but some believe the number could be much higher.

"This is expected to be just the start of a streak of terrible economic data to come in the following weeks," Hussein Sayed, chief market strategist at FXTM, wrote in a research note.

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