By SHERRY ROBINSON
All She Wrote
© 2024 New Mexico News Services

Day in, day out, the number crunchers at the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics keep tabs on the economy and report data, a job only a geek could love. Much hangs on those numbers.

The stock market, industry and government decision makers, and the business press track statistics coming from the BLS and other agencies to gauge the health of the economy. That’s why there was such an uproar when President Trump fired the bureau’s head geek, Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, because he didn’t like the numbers in the July jobs report. The economy had added just 73,000 jobs, the agency said, and it revised May and June numbers downward by 258,000 to just 33,000 jobs. That meant the economy has weakened in recent months. Trump accused the long-time economist of rigging the numbers to make him look bad.

Immediately, Bill Beach, a Trump appointee who previously held the job, spoke out on X: “The totally groundless firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer… sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the Bureau.” The BLS measures unemployment, new job creation and the consumer price index, among other things. The agency routinely adjusts numbers as it has new information. “The process of obtaining the numbers is decentralized by design to avoid opportunities for interference,” former commissioners said in a statement 

They didn’t mince words. The firing “undermines the credibility of federal economic statistics that are a cornerstone of intelligent economic decision-making by businesses, families, and policymakers. U.S. official statistics are the gold standard globally.”

Banana republics cook their numbers. The United States doesn’t. As it happens, New Mexico’s numbers were good for those same months. The state’s nonagricultural jobs grew by 23,500, or 2.7%, between June 2024 and June 2025, according to the Department of Workforce Solutions. It was the highest number in the western region!

The lion’s share of those gains, 21,000 jobs, were in the private sector. The biggest increases were in construction (8,200 jobs, or 15.3%). Mining, which includes oil and gas, was up 1,200 jobs, or 5.1%. Other gainers were manufacturing, healthcare, professional services, financial, and hospitality. Sectors with job losses included information, transportation, utilities, retail, wholesale, and utilities.

Unemployment in June was 4.2%, which was in line with the national rate (4.1%) and in line with Arizona (4.1%), Texas (4%) and Colorado (4.7%).

Let’s take a moment to look at what’s happened in the public sector over the past year. Of New Mexico’s 908,000 jobs, 190,800, or 4.76%, are in government. Of those, 105,000 are in local government, 45,000 are in state government (this number includes teachers), and 28,900 are in federal government. State and local government jobs rose slightly (2,600 jobs). However, federal employment is down 1,400 jobs, or 4.6%, since June 2024. 

Those numbers belie the importance of federal paychecks in the state. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, government and military were 22.4% of New Mexico’s gross domestic product, which measures the value of goods and services produced here. That’s higher than any other industry.

Now if the governor were running for office, we’d be hearing about those jobs numbers as evidence of her effective policies. In reality, governors have a limited impact on the economy, but they’ll campaign on good numbers anyway. And what if she didn’t like the numbers and fired the state’s chief labor economist? She’d never hear the end of it. Returning to head rolling at BLS, the reason why the commissioner’s firing is so alarming is that it destroys trust not just in BLS data but all government data.

What exactly are people to rely on to decide everything from a corporate expansion to buying a new car? If decision makers suddenly don’t know what they can believe, it introduces more uncertainty to the marketplace, and there’s already plenty.

The president is forgetting something. Down the road, what if the news is good, like New Mexico’s May and June numbers? What if nobody believes your good news?