Hawkish comments from policy makers fuelled bets the European Central Bank would raise interest rates this summer, lifting core euro zone government bond yields to 2014 levels and Italy's risk premium to that of the height of the pandemic.

The rise in yields which started in morning trading in Europe accelerated after data showed U.S. job growth exceeded expectations in April, suggesting the Federal Reserve may have room to tighten monetary policy further without undermining the recovery.

While the yield on 10-year Treasury notes jumped about 5 basis points to over 3.1%, 10-year German government bonds briefly reached a high of 1.2%, a level unseen in about eight years.

Other euro zone 10-year government bonds, such as the Netherlands' and Belgium's, also saw their yields rise to 2014 highs.

Meanwhile, the risk premium on Italian bonds rose above 200 basis points for the first time in about two years.

The closely-watched gap to German 10-year yields, effectively the risk premium on Italy's debt, rose above two percentage points for the first time since May 2020.

The move came after Italy's 10-year yield surpassed 3% for the first time since late 2018 on Thursday, with a further 9 basis point rise to 3.11% on Friday.

"There's been a pretty steep increase in Italy spread versus Germany," Lyn Graham-Taylor, senior rates strategist at Rabobank, said.

While still below a level that most analysts find concerning, the speed of the move has been in focus as the spread has risen some 50 bps since the start of April and is wider than many analysts and investors expected only a month ago.

The moves have come as ECB policymakers are becoming more vocal about normalising monetary policy quicker than previously expected, with more publicly backing a July rate hike.

The move in the Italian spread is "definitely going to be attracting the interest of the (ECB) governing council. Given the path the ECB is on, all things equal they are going to be tightening monetary policy into a slowdown, it's hard to see that spread not continuing to widen," Graham-Taylor said.

On Friday, money markets continued to ramp up their bets on ECB rate hikes this year, moving back to pricing in a 25 basis-point rate hike by the bank's July meeting and nearly 95 bps of rises by the end of the year.

Traders now also see a roughly 70% chance of a 10 basis-point hike in June following comments overnight from Austrian central bank governor and ECB policymaker Robert Holzmann, who said the ECB will probably raise interest rates at its June meeting.

French central bank governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau said the ECB should raise rates to positive territory this year, while German central bank governor Joachim Nagel said the ECB's time window for raising rates in response to record-high inflation is closing.

(Reporting by Yoruk Bahceli and Julien Ponthus; Editing by Alexander Smith and Andrew Heavens)