President Donald Trump said Friday that he has fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just hours after new employment numbers produced by the agency showed major downward revisions from previous months.
Trump announced on social media that he will replace Erika McEntarfer, who has been the commissioner of the BLS since 2024. He said in the message posted to Truth Social that the firing is effective immediately.
“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 chances of Victory,” Trump said.
The move comes the same day that the BLS released its latest jobs report for July, a report that caused markets to sink and raised questions about the health of the labor market.
The economy added just 73,000 jobs in July, and the unemployment rate rose a tenth of a percentage point to 4.2%. More notably, the report included some major downward revisions to the number of jobs created in the past two months.
The report revealed that some 258,000 fewer jobs were added in May and June than previously reported, a big change. That means the three-month moving average of job gains was just 35,000 in July, below the level needed to keep pace with population growth.
“We need accurate Jobs Numbers,” Trump continued. “I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. 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.”
McEntarfer was confirmed by the Senate to lead the BLS in January 2024 in a bipartisan 86-8 vote. Then-Sens. J.D. Vance (OH) and Marco Rubio (FL), now members of the Trump administration, voted in favor.
It is routine for the BLS to revise jobs numbers. Recent large revisions have led some commentators to suggest malfeasance on the part of the BLS, especially last year after a major downward revision during the heat of the election. Then, Trump accused the BLS of manipulating the data.
But the unusual scale of revisions can be explained by two major factors making it harder to get accurate estimates of job growth. One is the surge of unauthorized border-crossings that took place during the Biden administration, which led to many illegal immigrants taking jobs that were reflected in some government surveys but not other. The other is a post-pandemic trend of declining response rates for the survey used to put together the monthly jobs numbers.
Trump also used the opportunity to take aim at Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whom he has repeatedly attacked for the Fed’s decision to hold interest rates steady this year. He pointed out that the Fed lowered interest rates ahead of the 2024 presidential election and accused the Fed of having been motivated by politics.
DON’T EXPECT BIG INTEREST RATE CUTS IMMEDIATELY AFTER POWELL IS REPLACED AT FED
He added that Powell should be “put out to pasture.”
Some Trump allies have called for him to fire Powell, although such a move is legally dubious and would end up in the court system, given that the central bank is intended to be an independent agency.
