Crude-oil futures fell more than 2% on Friday and tallied their third straight weekly loss as a stronger-than-expected U.S. jobs report sent the dollar sharply higher.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude for delivery in April settled at $49.61 a barrel, down $1.15, or 2.3%. The contract turned negative just before the nonfarm payrolls figures, then fell further after the numbers came out. News of another weekly drop in the U.S. rig count briefly helped prices pare losses during the session. For the week, crude futures lost 0.3%, based on the most-active contracts. April Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange settled down 75 cents, or 1.2%, at $59.73 a barrel, losing 4.6% for the week. The U.S. ICE dollar index was up more than 1% following the jobs report, weighing on crude and other commodities that are traded in dollars. A strong buck makes dollar-denominated commodities more expensive for holders of other currencies.

The U.S. economy created 295,000 jobs in February and the unemployment rate fell to 5.5%, beating a consensus forecast for 238,000 and 5.6%. “This hawkish report is stoking the expectation for interest-rate hikes later in the year in the U.S., hence the dollar is rallying like a mad thing,” said Matt Smith, commodity analyst at Schneider Electric, in a note Friday. “This is providing gale-force headwinds for a crude move higher.”

The oil market has been closely following weekly data on the number of U.S. rigs actively drilling for oil and natural gas. Baker Hughes on Friday reported that the number of those drilling rigs as of March 6 fell by 75 to 1,192. The rig count is down 600 from the same time last year.

In the near-term, it appears some price settling will have an impact on Nymex oil, “while overall soft demand and excess supply suggest an eventual move even lower,” said Jonathan Citrin, founder and executive chairman of CitrinGroup. “All said, one thing seems certain in crude-oil trading: volatility and unpredictability is to be expected.”