President Trump said he has directed his team to fire Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who is responsible for producing the US monthly jobs reports.
This comes after July’s print showed larger-than-normal revisions for the past two months, indicating that the labor market has been cooling for the past three months.
“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 wrote on social media.
“We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified,” he added.
“Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes. McEntarfer said there were only 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, more importantly, that a major mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, in the prior two months. Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative.”
Trump has been pressuring the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. Policymakers this week decided to keep rates steady, with two dissidents voting for a rate cut.