Trump touts unofficial jobs data showing strong growth

Published March 8, 2017 4:57pm ET



President Trump on Wednesday touted lesser-known job statistics produced by private firms showing strong growth, raising expectations for Friday’s jobs report produced by the government.

From his @POTUS account, Trump drew attention to the employment report released Wednesday by the payroll firm ADP. The report was much stronger than expected, showing nearly 300,000 new private jobs created in February.

“Much more than expected!” the president wrote.


And earlier, from his @realDonaldTrump handle, Trump cited the LinkedIn workforce report published Tuesday, which found that January and February, the first two months of his administration, were the strongest two months for hiring since August and September 2015.


Wednesday’s ADP report raises expectations that Friday’s official jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics will show strong growth for February, the first full month of Trump’s tenure.

Jim O’Sullivan, chief economist for the forecasting firm High Frequency Economics, raised his projection for February job growth to hit 225,000 in the private sector. That would be right in line with January’s job growth of 227,000 new jobs.

Job growth that high is easily more than enough to keep the unemployment rate trending down.

Trump did not Tweet about January’s jobs report, released Feb. 3.