Trump says will name new economics data official this week
US job growth missed expectations in July, figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed Friday, and revisions to hiring figures in recent months brought them to the weakest levels since the Covid-19 pandemic.
US President Donald Trump speaks during a bilateral meeting at the Trump Turnberry Golf Courses, in Turnberry south west Scotland on 28 July 2025. Picture: Christopher Furlong/POOL/AFP
WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump said Sunday he will appoint a new economic data collector after firing the previous commissioner and accusing her of manipulating employment data to embarrass him after a new report showed cracks in the US jobs market.
"We'll be announcing a new (labor) statistician some time over the next three-four days," Trump told reporters.
US job growth missed expectations in July, figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed Friday, and revisions to hiring figures in recent months brought them to the weakest levels since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Shortly afterwards, Trump removed Erika McEntarfer, the department's commissioner of labor statistics. Without providing evidence, he posted on social media that the jobs numbers "were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad."
Speaking to reporters Sunday, Trump said: "We had no confidence. I mean the numbers were ridiculous."
Trump added that the same official, just before the 2024 election, "came out with these phenomenal (jobs) numbers on (Joe) Biden's economy."
He claimed those numbers were "a scam."
The United States added 73,000 jobs last month, while the unemployment rate rose to 4.2 percent from 4.1 percent, the Department of Labor reported.
Hiring numbers for May were revised down from 144,000 to 19,000. The figure for June was shifted from 147,000 to 14,000.
This was notably lower than job creation levels in recent years. During the pandemic, the economy lost jobs.
The employment data points to challenges in the labor market as companies took a cautious approach in hiring and investment while grappling with Trump's sweeping -- and rapidly changing -- tariffs this year.
The White House's economic advisor, Kevin Hassett, defended McEntarfer's firing in an interview with NBC News on Saturday.
When asked if the president was prepared to fire anyone who reports data he disagrees with, Hassett said: "Absolutely not. The president wants his own people there so that when we see the numbers they are more transparent and more reliable."
Trump's decision was criticized as setting a "dangerous precedent" by William Beach, who previously held McEntarfer's post at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The National Association for Business Economics (NABE) also condemned her dismissal, saying large revisions in jobs numbers "reflect not manipulation, but rather the dwindling resources afforded to statistical agencies."
McEntarfer, a labour economist who spent much of her career at the Census Bureau, had been in the commissioner role for just over a year after being confirmed by the Senate in January 2024.