On Friday, President Donald Trump dismissed the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a new report on jobs has shown a major slowdown in hiring in recent months.
In an article on social networks, Trump voted strong criticism and baseless charges to Erika Mcentarfer, a named Biden who was confirmed by the Senate in 2024.
“I ordered my team to dismiss this named Biden policy, immediately,” said Trump, after accused Mcentarfer without foundation of having “rigged” statistics.
MCentarfer held the federal government for 20 years, including posts at the US Census Bureau, the President’s Executive Office and the Treasury Ministry, according to the BLS website.
The United States added 73,000 jobs in July, according to BLS data. The figure marked a slowdown of 147,000 jobs added the previous month. The unemployment rate reached 4.2%, keeping it in almost historical hollows.
The report provided new estimates for two previous months, considerably eliminating the government’s estimate of the jobs added in May and June. The new data has indicated a notable slowdown in hiring while Trump’s prices have settled in recent months.
Trump criticized Mcentarfer for the revisions, saying without evidence that the revisions suggested that the statistics of the jobs had been “manipulated”. The BLS regularly revises the estimates of the jobs added in previous months.
Raymond Robertson, teacher of economics in Texas has&M University, was expressed on shots.
“It’s disastrous,” said Robertson. “Having a president who refuses to accept the figures, then to draw people because he does not like the figures … It is part to try to fold the figures to the political will.”
While the Trump administration selects a replacement, the assistant commissioner of the BLS, William Wiatrowski, will be interim commissioner, according to a position on X of the secretary to the Labor Lori Chavez-Deremer.
Wiatrowski was an acting commissioner of BLS from January 2017 to March 2019, constituting a large part of Trump’s first mandate, said the BLS website.
The Trump administration described downward revisions as an unwanted sign for the American economy.
“Obviously, this is not what we want to see,” Stephen Miran, president of the White House economic advisers, said on Friday.
Miran blamed the low performance in part to the uncertainty linked to the fate of the legislation on Trump’s domestic spending as well as the ultimate result of the tariff policy. The Congress adopted Trump’s expenditure measure earlier this month; More recently, Trump announced a new series of prices on Thursday.
“These two sources of uncertainty are resolved,” said Miran. “We expect things to become material stronger from here, now that our policies are starting to sort.”
In May, the United States added 19,000 jobs, much lower than a previously estimated total of 139,000 jobs, the BLS said. While in June, the economy added only 14,000 jobs, revising the drop in a previous estimate of 147,000 jobs.
“Not only was it a much lower than expected pay number, but the downward revisions of monsters of the last two months are in major blow to the image of the robustness of the labor market,” Seema Shah, a global strategist for the main asset management, told a statement.
The job report arrives a few days after a separate government report has shown better than expected economic growth. American GDP increased to an annualized rate of 3% over three months ending in June, according to the report.
Robust reading suggested that the economy continued to avoid significant charging time induced by prices. A unique statistical oddity linked to a drop in imports, however, seemed to be partly taking into account the overvoltage.
Certain key measures of the economy have proven to be resilient in recent months, defying the fears of resident inflation and a possible economic slowdown. Inflation increased for two consecutive months, but it remains well below a peak reached in June 2022.
Hiring data arrive a few days after the Federal Reserve chose to hold stable interest rates at its July meeting.
Five meetings and seven months have passed since the last adjusted interest rates of the Fed. The rate of federal funds is between 4.25% and 4.5%, preserving a large increase imposed in response to inflation access from the pandemic era.
The president of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, speaks to journalists following regular meetings of the Federal Committee of the market open to the Fed on July 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
SOMODEVILLA / GETTY Images chip
A significant slowdown in the labor market could encourage the Fed to give greater consideration to a drop in potential rate.
Trump has repeatedly urged the Central Bank to reduce interest rates, claiming that policy stimulated economic performance and would reduce payments of interest on public debt.
The president of the Fed, Jerome Powell, on the other hand, expressed a certain concern concerning a ravidity of inflation due to high prices. Importers generally transmit a higher tax burden in the form of price increases.
Speaking at a press conference in Washington, DC on Wednesday, Powell said that the prices had started to contribute to price increases for certain goods, but the ultimate impact of the policy remains uncertain.
“Higher prices have started to manifest itself more clearly in the prices of certain goods, but their global effects on inflation and the economy remain to be seen,” said Powell. “Their effects on inflation could be short -lived, but it is possible that the effects of inflation can be more persistent.”
He added: “We will do what we have to do to keep inflation under control.”
ABC News Selina Wang contributed to this report.
