Markets weaken across Asia-Pacific region Thursday 03:30 GMT. The moves may be small but the direction is clear: equity markets are weaker across the Asia-Pacific region. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index are each down 0.3 per cent, while mainland shares on the Shanghai Composite dipped 0.2 per cent. Investors are cautious ahead of interest rate decisions in the eurozone and the UK on Thursday plus a highly-anticipated monthly US jobs report on Friday. The broad losses follow a 0.1 per cent pullback in the S&P 500, after a strong private payrolls survey increased speculation that the Federal Reserve could soon trim back, or "taper," its stimulus measures known as quantitative easing. Automatic Data Processing, the payrolls data group, said that 215,000 US jobs had been created in November - ahead of market expectations and up from a revised reading of 184,000 in October. "This notable improvement in the data has led the market to recalculate the odds of a tapering in quantitative easing, with the probability of tapering in January increasing by the day as the recovery picks up steam and the prospects of a fiscal budget agreement improve," wrote Gennadiy Goldberg, TD Securities economist. In Sydney, the S&P/ASX fell 0.6 per cent, after Qantas warned it could lose between A$250m and A$300m before taxes in the six months ending Dec 31, 2013. Analysts had been expecting the airline to report a pre-tax loss of $74m in the six-month period, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg. In the same period a year ago, Qantas reported a A$223m profit The national carrier cited a "marked deterioration in November" and said it was aiming to cut costs by A$2bn (US$1.8bn) over three years, including axing 1,000 jobs. Qantas shares fell 13 per cent on the news. The Aussie dollar also extended its decline after new data showed that exports stalled in October, causing the trade deficit to widen to A$529m, versus forecasts for a A$350m gap. The Australian currency fell to a three-month low against the US dollar and to three-year lows against the euro and the pound. In the US, investors weighed the upbeat private jobs report against a more cautious read on the labour market from the Institute for Supply Management. The employment component in its service sector report fell to 52.5 from 56.2, indicating a broad deceleration. Any score above 50 indicates growth. The ISM's headline also slipped from 55.4 in October to 53.9, though Paul Dales at Capital Economics said that was a "respectable" figure. Further muddying the picture was news of a rise in new US home sales in October, suggesting that the housing recovery was weathering higher mortgage rates. While equities barely budged in New York, there was a fairly unequivocal response from the US government bond market to the day's data releases.