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President Donald Trump on Friday fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, hours after the agency reported that job growth in the U.S. had slowed to a near-halt.<\/p>\n
In a Truth Social post<\/a> that also directed even more fire at Fed Chair Jerome Powell<\/a>, Trump accused BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer of being a political appointee who was manipulating jobs data.<\/p>\n “I was just 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 before the Election to try and boost Kamala’s [Harris’] chances of Victory,” Trump wrote.<\/p>\n “We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified,” he added.<\/p>\n CNBC has reached out to the BLS for comment. NBC News confirmed that McEntarfer has been fired. The BLS operated under the Department of Labor, whose commissioner, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, is a Trump appointee.<\/p>\n The stunning demand came the same day that the BLS reported a gain of just 73,000 nonfarm jobs<\/a> in July, below market expectations. In addition, the bureau revised the two previous months down sharply, cutting a combined 258,000 from the prior counts, putting the three-month growth rate at a paltry 35,000. It was the biggest two-month downward revision since April 2020, the early days of the Covid crisis.<\/p>\n Trump and congressional Republicans have repeatedly criticized the BLS over the years for its data collection. In particular, the large revisions have been a target.<\/p>\n In his spending plan this year, Trump proposed an 8% reduction in staff at the bureau, raising questions over the integrity of its counts on employment, consumer prices and multiple other economic metrics. The bureau has had to impute a growing amount of estimated data into a number of its reports.<\/p>\n Dr. Erika McEntarfer, Commissioner of Labor Statistics<\/p>\n Source: Bureau of Labor<\/p>\n “Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes,” the president wrote. “McEntarfer said there were only 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, more importantly, that a major mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, in the prior two months. Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative.”<\/p>\n Prior to Friday’s report, Trump repeatedly has championed the strength of the labor market. After the June numbers had been released initially, the White House put out a statement calling it a “June Boom.”<\/p>\n