Trump calls for firing of senior Labor official after job market weakens in July

The job market weakened sharply during the late spring and early summer as President Donald Trump's tariffs began to take effect — and Trump responded by calling for the firing of a key labor statistician.

U.S. employers added just 73,000 jobs in July, according to a report Friday from the Labor Department, while job gains for May and June were largely erased. The unemployment rate inched up to 4.2%.

Hours after the report, Trump advanced baseless claims about the jobs numbers, writing on social media that he thought they "were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad."

In another post, Trump said he was firing Erika McEntarfer, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which puts out the jobs report. McEntarfer was appointed to the job by former President Joe Biden.

"She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified," Trump added. "Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can't be manipulated for political purposes."

Data experts have raised concerns about the integrity of U.S. government statistics under the Trump administration, which has been slashing positions and funding for statistical agencies.

McEntarfer's term at the Bureau of Labor Statistics was not set to end until early 2028. Federal law, however, allows presidents to remove commissioners of labor statistics before their four-year term is up.

Tariff uncertainty hits manufacturing

The jobs report came a day after President Trump announced a new round of tariffs on a wide range of countries.

Health care was one of the few sectors with solid job growth last month.

But the federal government shed 12,000 jobs in July and has lost some 84,000 workers since the beginning of the year. Tens of thousands of additional federal workers have taken buyouts but are still counted as employed through the end of September.

Factories shed 11,000 jobs in July. Domestic manufacturers are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the president's trade policies. But factory managers complain that uncertainty over import taxes has depressed orders and other activity. The federal government has been charging a 10% tax on nearly everything the U.S. imports since April, and higher tariffs are set to take effect on many goods next week.

"These tariff wars are beginning to wear us out," one anonymous factory manager said in a survey released Friday by the Institute for Supply Management. "There is zero clarity about the future, and it's been a difficult few months trying to figure out where everything is going to land and the impact on our business. So far, tremendous and unexpected costs have been incurred."

The unemployment rate rose in July even as nearly 40,000 people dropped out of the workforce. The share of adults who are working or looking for work has fallen by half a percent in the last year.

The share of immigrants in the workforce has fallen even more sharply, which could be making it harder for employers to fill the jobs they'd like to.

"I think it's mostly a labor supply story," says Jed Kolko, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "When you look sector by sector, the big slowdown in employment this year is in, first of all federal government employment, of course, but also in some sectors that are particularly reliant on immigrants such as construction, home health aides and accommodation and hospitality."

Despite the slowdown in hiring, wages continue to climb. Average wages in July were up 3.9% from a year ago, which is likely more than enough to outpace inflation.

Data will likely add pressure on the Fed

The weakness in the job market is likely to amplify calls for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates at its next policy meeting in September. The central bank held rates steady earlier this week, out of concern that rising tariffs would put more upward pressure on prices.

Trump has repeatedly attacked the Fed and Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates sooner. But he will soon have an opportunity to appoint a new member to the the Fed's seven-person governing board. Adriana Kugler, who has served as Fed governor for just under two years, announced she's stepping down next week, six months before her term was set to expire.

The Fed said Kugler, a labor economist, was resigning to return to Georgetown University as professor this fall.

NPR's Hansi Lo Wang contributed reporting.
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