President Donald Trump on Friday removed the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs figures after a report showed hiring slowed in July and was much weaker in May and June than previously reported.
Trump, in a post on his social media platform, alleged that the figures were manipulated for political reasons and said that Erika McEntarfer, the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, should be fired. He provided no evidence for the charge.
“I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump said on Truth Social. “She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.”
Trump later posted: “In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.”
The charge that the data was faked is an explosive one that threatens to undercut the political legitimacy of the U.S. government's economic data, which has long been seen as the “gold standard” of economic measurement globally. Economists and Wall Street investors have for decades generally accepted the data as free from political bias.
Jill Schlesinger, CBS News Business Analyst and host of Jill on Money, noted that what she has been hearing was reflected in the jobs report. She even adds that a lot of the news reports regarding the job market weren't bad enough.
"That was such a wild jobs report and, to be clear, we're going to talk about a blog post that I wrote actually prepared this before the jobs report was out," Schlesinger explained. "Which is what to do if you lose your job because I had been hearing from people on the radio show, and also a lot of people across the country on my podcast, who are saying that the labor market seemed a lot weaker in their experience than what the numbers were showing."
In fact, during an interview with CNBC on Monday, White House Economic Advisor Kevin Hassett basically admitted the numbers they got on July were correct. He also added a big "if" when it comes to manipulation. There is no evidence that any manipulation took place.
"Yeah, I think the jobs numbers were slower than we expected," said Hassett. "I think one of the explanations for the revisions is they had more complete data. It's likely the revisions are a better read of the data, if the data are not being manipulated."
Schlesinger says that the move comes after a very routine practice making it all the more controversial.
"I guess they were right because when we got the July jobs report, there were major downward revisions to the previous two months," she says. "Now, every month we get downward revisions. It's just that these are big ones. Part of it has to do with companies being very slow, or organizations being slow to actually send the results in. And then the Labor Department kind of fudges the numbers and extrapolates a little bit. But then when they get the real numbers in, they're like, whoa, those numbers are not good."
Friday’s jobs report 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's 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's tariffs.
"Not poor Erika's fault, who is the head of this part of the organization," says Schlesinger. "It is really just how data works. They get revised and revised and revised. But what I think is more important is the lived experience on the ground, which is that the job market is undergoing a real, let's call it a deceleration. We're downshifting and we're not seeing massive job losses. Companies are keeping the jobs, the workers they have. They don't seem to be firing a lot of them, but they are not opening up and hiring in a big way. Part of that may be tariffs. It might just be that the economy is slowing down itself. And that could be it too."
Reaction to the extraordinary move
Trump’s move to fire McEntarfer represented another extraordinary assertion of presidential power. He has wielded the authority of the White House to try to control the world’s international trade system, media companies, America’s top universities and Congress’ constitutional power of the purse, among other institutions.
McEntarfer's firing was roundly condemned by a group that included two former BLS commissioners, including William Beach, who was appointed by Trump to the position. They particularly objected to the charge that the data was altered for political reasons.
“This rationale for firing Dr. McEntarfer is without merit and undermines the credibility of federal economic statistics that are a cornerstone of intelligent economic decision-making by businesses, families, and policymakers,” the statement from the group, the Friends of BLS, said.
In addition to Beach, the statement was signed by Erica Groshen, BLS commissioner under former President Barack Obama.
“Firing the Commissioner ... when the BLS revises jobs numbers down (as it routinely does) threatens to destroy trust in core American institutions, and all government statistics,” Arin Dube, an economist at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, said on X. “I can’t stress how damaging this is.”
After Trump's initial post, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said on X that McEntarfer was no longer leading the bureau and that William Wiatrowski, the deputy commissioner, would serve as the acting director.
“I support the President’s decision to replace Biden’s Commissioner and ensure the American People can trust the important and influential data coming from BLS,” Chavez-DeRemer said.
“What does a bad leader do when they get bad news? Shoot the messenger,” Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a Friday speech.
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.
The Senate confirmed McEntarfer to her post 86-8, with now Vice President JD Vance among the yea votes.
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%.
“No one can be that wrong? We need accurate Jobs Numbers,” Trump wrote. “She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes.”
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.
“GREAT JOB NUMBERS, STOCK MARKET UP BIG!” Trump posted at the time.
That estimate was later revised down to 125,000 jobs, prior to the most recent revision down to just 19,000.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump was more critical: He often attacked the jobs figures as they showed the unemployment rate steadily declining while Obama was still president, only to immediately switch to praising the data once he was in office, as steady job gains continued.
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 on Friday.
The revisions to the May and June numbers were quite large and surprising to many economists. At the same time, every monthly jobs report includes revisions to the prior two months' figures. Those revisions occur as the government receives more responses from businesses to its survey, which helps provide a more complete picture of employment trends each month.
In the past decade, companies have taken longer to respond, which may have contributed to larger monthly revisions.
The proportion of companies responding to the surveys has also fallen steadily over the past 10 years, but the survey still gets responses from roughly 200,000 business locations, which can be independent companies or franchises of larger chains.
The monthly jobs report has long been closely guarded within the BLS, with early copies held in safes under lock and key to prevent any leaks or early dissemination.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.