The erratic way that Trump has rolled out his tariffs – announcing and then suspending them, then coming up with new ones – has left businesses bewildered.
Manufacturers responding to a survey released this week by the Institute for Supply Management complained that they and their customers were reluctant to make decisions until they understood where Trump’s tariffs would end up. ”That whiplash has to stop and it has to stay stopped,” said Susan Spence, chair of the ISM’s manufacturing survey committee.
Trump’s assault on the federal bureaucracy could also show up in June’s job report. Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, expects federal jobs dropped by 20,000 last month, ”reflecting a hiring freeze, voluntary quits and retirements.” For now, she wrote in a commentary Wednesday, court rulings ”have put massive federal layoffs on hold.”
The president’s deportations – and the threat of them – also are likely to start having an impact on the job market by driving immigrants out of the job market. In May, the U.S. labor force – those working and looking for work – fell by 625,000, the biggest drop in a year and a half.