Trump dismisses the head of the Labor Statistics office, after the new unemployment reports. “It was called politically by Biden, falsified the data”
Donald Trump, at the NATO summit in The Hague. Photo: Rut / Splashnews.com / Splash / Profimedia
US President Donald Trump announced on a post on Social Truth on Friday that he had fired Erika Mcentarfer, the commissioner of the Labor Statistics Office (BLS), accusing her of “manipulated” the employment data to favor the Democratic Administration before the elections, the CNBC post, quoted by News.ro.
The decision comes just a few hours after BLS published a disappointing report: only 73,000 non-agricultural jobs created in July, well below market expectations. Also, the data for the previous months were significantly revised down, with a total of 258,000 jobs removed from previous statistics, which reduces the average growth over the last three months to only 35,000.
“I was informed that the figures about jobs are produced by a called Erika Mcentarfer, called politically by Biden, who falsified the data before the elections to increase the chances of Kamale Harris. I ordered my team to dismiss it immediately. It will be replaced with a more competent and qualified person,” wrote Trump.
NBC News later confirmed that Mcentarfer was removed from office. The Office of Labor Statistics did not offer an official comment.
Old controversies, budget cuts and lack of confidence in data
Trump and several Republican Congressmen have criticized the BLS methodology in the past, especially the great subsequent reviews of the data published initially.
In his draft budget for this year, Trump proposed to reduce BLS staff by 8%, raising question marks on accuracy of employment data, inflation and other economic indicators.
More and more reports of the agency have been based in recent years on estimated or statistically imputed data, due to lack of staff and methodological difficulties.
The dismissal of the BLS Commissioner takes place in the context in which Trump performs increasing pressures on the federal reserve (FED) and the head of the Jerome Powell institution, which he was accused of inaction after the central bank decided on Wednesday to maintain the unchanged reference interest.
The markets have reacted negatively to both job data and Fed decision, amplifying the economic tensions in the election campaign.
