Despite the US adding just 113,000 new jobs last month, markets appeared to be taking the positives from the payrolls numbers.
The figure was way short of forecasters' expectations - who had cited an add of 190,000 positions - but still showed the rate of unemployment dropping.
On Wall Street, the benchmark Dow added 56 to stand at 15,673, while the Nasdaq added 28 to 4,085. The broader S&P 500 added 10 to stand at 1,783.
The US data showed hiring rose the fastest last month in the construction and manufacturing sectors, while retailers cut jobs.
On S&P, the biggest gainer was travel group Expedia, which gained almost 15% following annoucing higher than expected quarterly profit.
In the UK, FTSE 100 was similarly making gains, adding around 25 points to 6,582, with housebuilder Persimmon (LON:PSN), the biggest gainer, up over 3.5%.
In small cap world one of the biggest gainers was contractor Greka Drilling (LON:GDL) after it said it knew of no reason for the recent share price slide.
Shares rose 17.5% after the company repeated its comments from January that it had 180 drillable wells with blue chip customers in China and India confirmed for 2014 with an estimated total value of US$97mln.
Elsewhere in the energy sector, Independent Oil & Gas (LON:IOG) surged after it said it would not now move to take over operations at its jointly-owned Skipper project in the North Sea.
IOG says it continues to support ATP as the operator of the Skipper and Blythe projects.
Previously the AIM quoted firm had considered taking operational control, to try and drill the Skipper well in the summer’s ‘good weather window’.
It now believes a change of operator won’t be necessary.
A general feeling that Argentina is set to come in from the cold as an investment destination was given further impetus by a major breakthrough in the Vaca Muerta shale by Andes Energia (LON:AEN). Its shares surged over 23%.
Top Level Domain Holdings (LON:TLDH) is carrying the ball for the tech sector and is up 4.46% after the number of uncontested top level domains in which it has an interest rose by one to 25.
This was following a decision by The International Chamber of Commerce to make the International Rugby Board (IRB) the sole applicant for the top level domain .RUGBY; TLDH and Roar Domains LLC are the IRB's joint venture partners for the .RUGBY domain.