jobs report<\/a> showed that just 73,000 jobs were added last month and that 258,000 fewer jobs were created in May and June than previously estimated. The report suggested that the economy has sharply weakened during Trump\u2019s tenure, a pattern consistent with a slowdown in economic growth during the first half of the year and an increase in inflation during June that appeared to reflect the price pressures created by the president\u2019s tariffs.<\/p>\n\u201cWhat does a bad leader do when they get bad news? Shoot the messenger,\u201d Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a Friday speech.<\/p>\n
Trump has sought to attack institutions that rely on objective data for assessing the economy, including the Federal Reserve and, now, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The actions reflect a broader mission to bring the totality of the executive branch \u2014 including independent agencies designed to objectively measure the nation\u2019s wellbeing \u2014 under the White House\u2019s control.<\/p>\n
McEntarfer was nominated by Biden in 2023 and became the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in January 2024. Commissioners typically serve four-year terms but since they are political appointees can be fired. The commissioner is the only political appointee of the agency, which has hundreds of career civil servants. <\/p>\n
The Senate confirmed McEntarfer to her post 86-8, with now Vice President JD Vance among the yea votes.<\/p>\n
Trump focused much of his ire on the revisions the agency made to previous hiring data. Job gains in May were revised down to just 19,000 from a previously revised 125,000, and for June they were cut to 14,000 from 147,000. In July, only 73,000 positions were added. The unemployment rate ticked up to a still-low 4.2% from 4.1%. <\/p>\n
\u201cNo one can be that wrong? We need accurate Jobs Numbers,\u201d Trump wrote. \u201cShe will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can\u2019t be manipulated for political purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has not always been so suspicious of the monthly jobs report and responded enthusiastically after the initial May figures came out on June 6 when it was initially reported that the economy added 139,000 jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cGREAT JOB NUMBERS, STOCK MARKET UP BIG!\u201d Trump posted at the time.<\/p>\n
That estimate was later revised down to 125,000 jobs, prior to the most-recent revision down to just 19,000.<\/p>\n
The monthly employment report is one of the most closely-watched pieces of government economic data and can cause sharp swings in financial markets. The disappointing figure sent U.S. market indexes about 1.5% lower Friday. <\/p>\n
While the jobs numbers are often the subject of political spin, economists and Wall Street investors \u2014 with millions of dollars at stake \u2014 have always accepted U.S. government economic data as free from political manipulation.<\/p>\n
Copyright
\n \u00a9\u00a02025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump on Friday called for the firing of the head of the agency that produces the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[64,63,99,180,1883,34393],"class_list":{"0":"post-38400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-jobs","12":"tag-jobs-report","13":"tag-labor-commissioner"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}