Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
President Donald Trump connected Friday demanded the firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, hours aft the bureau reported that occupation maturation successful the U.S. had slowed to a near-halt.
In a Truth Social station that besides directed adjacent much occurrence astatine Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Trump accused BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer of being a governmental appointee who was manipulating jobs data.
"I was conscionable informed that our Country's "Jobs Numbers" are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the Jobs Numbers earlier the Election to effort and boost Kamala's [Harris'] chances of Victory," Trump wrote.
Dr. Erika McEntarfer, Commissioner of Labor Statistics
Source: Bureau of Labor
"We request close Jobs Numbers. I person directed my Team to occurrence this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She volition beryllium replaced with idiosyncratic overmuch much competent and qualified," helium added.
CNBC has reached retired to the BLS for comment.
The stunning request came the aforesaid time that the BLS reported a summation of conscionable 73,000 nonfarm jobs successful July, beneath marketplace expectations. In addition, the bureau revised the 2 erstwhile months down sharply, cutting a combined 258,000 from the anterior counts, putting the three-month maturation complaint astatine a paltry 35,000.
Trump and legislature Republicans person repeatedly criticized the BLS implicit the years for its information collection. In particular, the ample revisions person been a target.
In his spending program this year, Trump projected an 8% simplification successful unit astatine the bureau, raising questions implicit the integrity of its counts connected employment, user prices and aggregate different economical metrics. The bureau has had to impute a increasing magnitude of estimated information into a fig of its reports.
"Important numbers similar this indispensable beryllium just and accurate, they can't beryllium manipulated for governmental purposes," the president wrote. "McEntarfer said determination were lone 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, much importantly, that a large mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, successful the anterior 2 months. Similar things happened successful the archetypal portion of the year, ever to the negative."
The anemic jobs study Friday preceded a crisp driblet successful markets, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average disconnected much than 500 points and the tech-focused Nasdaq disconnected much than 2%. Treasury yields besides slumped.
"I can't judge what I conscionable saw," said Peter Mallouk, president and main concern serviceman of Creative Planning. Trump's societal media station seemed similar a parody oregon satire astatine first, Mallouk said.
"This is not healthy," helium added. "We can't person a acceptable of numbers travel retired and occurrence idiosyncratic that served nether galore administrations successful assorted roles due to the fact that you don't similar the numbers."
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